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Post by edmonddantes on Nov 28, 2018 5:24:30 GMT -5
So I was watching Game Sack and it reminded me of two visual aesthetics that I kinda like in older video games. Admittedly, one of these might be making a comeback, while the other is a case where there's a modern equivalent that I honestly don't think is as good.
Okay, one is... I call it "16-Bit Dark." It's best exemplified by games like Legendary Axe II, Chakan the Forever Man, possibly some parts of Valis... I'm not sure if I would say Demon's Crest fits here or not. It's a peculiar middle-ground where there's some dark and at times, effed-up imagery going on, but the game isn't really trying (or coming off as) outright miserable or scary, and instead still feels action-y. Some anime from the late 80s and early 90s did something comparable (like Devil Hunter Yohko 5).
Now I know what you're gonna say: "Souls series, yo!" But Dark Souls etc. really feel like they're trying to be more moody and scary, rather than having such an aesthetic over a fun action romp. Devil May Cry comes close but it ruins it a bit by going into camp. I honestly think that this aesthetic might be something of a lost art as more video games are story and narrative-focused now.
The second is... "PS1 Graphics." Actually, I have seen some indie games that kinda take this look, but in general... I dunno, sometimes when I'm playing something like King's Field, the fact that it looks low-res kinda makes the world more mysterious or something (actually Shadow Tower especially benefits from this). By comparison the PS2 game King's Field the Ancient City looks just kinda bland, like a generic fantasy setting.
I'm not sure if I explained either one adequately, I'm not good at explaining visuals.
Any thoughts? Any aesthetics you see in older games you wish would make a comeback?
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Post by zaphie on Nov 28, 2018 6:39:34 GMT -5
Puritanical tank controlled claustrophobic survival horror games with 2d rendered backgrounds + american voice actors picked off the streets of Tokyo is what I miss the most. All the things that made Japanese games great was basically killed by consoles getting too powerful and the quality control of games made many Japanese games unacceptable for release so we'll have to stay happy with Resident Evil 2 mods or indie companies on Steam.
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Post by wyrdwad on Nov 28, 2018 6:48:14 GMT -5
There are a number of indie titles that I think manage to capture "16-bit dark" pretty well. Odallus, for example, is a perfect example, along with most of Nifflas' games like Knytt Underground, and certainly the La-Mulana titles. The Mummy Demastered, too, for sure (really stupid title, but pretty solid Metroidvania with very little story but very dark themes) -- though that might count as a game that's trying to be moody and scary. I'd argue Shin Megami Tensei: Synchronicity Prologue counts -- you could say that by pure virtue of being an SMT-related game, it's also meant to be moody and scary, but considering it stars Jack Frost and Jack O'Lantern, I don't really think it is! Possibly Strider 2014, too? Trying to think of what else, as I really feel like this isn't all that much of a rarity these days. I don't really know where your cutoff is for a game having too much of a narrative focus to qualify, but games like Owlboy, Cave Story, and the recently released Timespinner might count, perhaps. PS1 graphics is a bit trickier, and is honestly not something I'd be too keen to see make a comeback, personally. Though N64-style 3D platformers ARE making something of a comeback with the likes of A Hat in Time and Yooka-Laylee, which I kind of feel is somewhat related? I dunno, though -- rarely would I say that intentionally lowering the resolution and complexity of a game's visuals would work in its favor aesthetically. Rather, if the higher-res art is too bland, that just means it's not good art and could stand to be drawn BETTER, not worse. That's just my take, though. As for aesthetics I miss... 2.5D, maybe? Think Klonoa, Pandemonium, etc. 2.5D games still exist, but they're definitely a rarity these days, and I find that kind of a shame, as I always thought they were kind of weirdly magical in feel. Also, isometric puzzle platformers. We got one a few years ago called Lumo, but Lumo was... not great. It tried to emulate the isometric puzzle platformers of old, but wound up putting all its eggs in the wrong basket by featuring permanently missable bonus items and ludicrously difficult platforming challenges that require dying like 50 times before you gain enough muscle memory to get through them. Which killed any enthusiasm I had for the game, and probably killed the whole genre for another few years. ALSO also, I know this isn't quite what you meant, but... '80s-style character designs! I miss having all protagonists and antagonists alike wearing giant spiky shoulder armor, dagnabbit. Spaulders are a lost art!  Oh, and cinematic platformers. Prince of Persia, Another World, Flashback, Lester the Unlikely, Blackthorne, etc. We got one on MSX and ZX Spectrum last year called The Sword of IANNA, and it was great -- and really reminded me how much I enjoy that genre. But you sure don't see too many other people clamoring to create new entries in it! -Tom |
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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Nov 28, 2018 8:08:38 GMT -5
Just well drawn 16-bit aesthetics in general (I know there are some indie games), and the flat shaded low poly look but in high res and with better lighting. Like Superhot but more consistent.
I'll second isometric puzzle platformers too. I liked how monument valley looked but it doesn't have to be art déco.
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Post by Bumpyroad on Nov 28, 2018 11:00:50 GMT -5
As aesthetics is no longer bound by tech limitations, devs can go all kinds of retro these days, granted it sells. It's about income. Or if you want something really specific--you pledge some and they gonna "kickstart" it for you.
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Post by Snake on Nov 28, 2018 12:10:40 GMT -5
As for aesthetics I miss... 2.5D, maybe? Think Klonoa, Pandemonium, etc. 2.5D games still exist, but they're definitely a rarity these days, and I find that kind of a shame, as I always thought they were kind of weirdly magical in feel. I miss this too. Even Einhander had some elements of 2.5D. I liked that you can still play the game like normal, while the camera pans and tracks from different perspectives, zooms, and angles. It gives it something of an interactive film feel. Particularly for Road to Phantomile. |
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Post by surnshurn on Nov 28, 2018 14:36:06 GMT -5
I miss the old-school asthetic of things not necessarily making sense in game context, as well as more cartoony/minimalist and fantastic environments - some titles that come to mind are Jumping Flash (PS1), Bubble Bobble (Arcade), and Fantasy Zone (Arcade).
Technology-wise, it was practically the dark ages compared to today's platforms, so you could get away with having some weird pulsating cube or angry light bulb as an enemy alongside more conventional enemy types, simply because everything was so simplistic that there wasn't a huge dissonance between weird cube and an orc. If a dev tried to pass a weird cube enemy in say a Gears of War release, there would be quite the shit show on what is basically a graphical placeholder left in a "AAA" title.
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Post by retr0gamer on Nov 28, 2018 15:38:32 GMT -5
I just miss the general weirdness of the low budget Japanese PS1 and PS2 games. You just don't get it anymore. Any indie game that tries to be weird just comes across as being way too try hard and, I hate to say it, hipster. Whereas those games seem to have just been made for the love of a great concept and a bad managerial decision to give the team money to make it.
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Post by GamerL on Nov 28, 2018 23:40:19 GMT -5
I just miss the general weirdness of the low budget Japanese PS1 and PS2 games. You just don't get it anymore. Any indie game that tries to be weird just comes across as being way too try hard and, I hate to say it, hipster. Whereas those games seem to have just been made for the love of a great concept and a bad managerial decision to give the team money to make it. I miss those weird Japanese games as well, games like Mr Mosquito or Incredible Crisis. What's odd is you wouldn't think those type of games would disappear given the fact that one of them, Katamari Damacy, found mainstream success, but the mid-00s was a very unique, brief window of time. I think just in general I miss distinctly Japanese games that aren't necessarily the typical anime styled stuff. Though what's cool about something like Dark Souls is despite the western fantasy styled theme there's enough weird elements that there would be no mistaking it for anyone actually western. |
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Post by eatersthemanfool on Nov 30, 2018 6:09:27 GMT -5
I miss tank controlled survival horror games and 2.5D platformers.
I don't miss PS1 wobbly textures at all. In fact, that was part of what made Strafe suck so bad.
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Post by edmonddantes on Nov 30, 2018 7:05:53 GMT -5
ALSO also, I know this isn't quite what you meant, but... '80s-style character designs! I miss having all protagonists and antagonists alike wearing giant spiky shoulder armor, dagnabbit. Spaulders are a lost art! -Tom In a more general sense, I like 80s or early-90s-style anime artwork more than what anime does nowadays. I dunno, somehow it feels like its gotten more boring, and its hard to put a finger on... everything from the designs being less colorful and seeming to prefer muted colors (much like everything else these days) to the designs themselves either being less exhuberant, or trying to make up for the lack of specialness by being over-designed (insert Tetsuya Nomura joke here). This was something I thought about during my recent fling with the Phantasy Star series. For as "generic" as the anime graphics in PSII looked, I still would rather have blue-haired Rolf with his small but apparently effective breastplate over... whatever the hell the franchise is doing now. I looked at images of PSO2 and just.... yeah. (That game also apparently has a story which takes place on Earth and stars a teenager or something, so just what the hell. What, is the next Star Wars movie gonna have Darth Vader being a high school gym teacher?) BTW been wondering... I keep thinking your avatar is Genma Saotome from Ranma 1/2, but that can't be right (if for no other reason than Genma doesn't have a 98 on his forehead) so who is it? |
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Post by wyrdwad on Nov 30, 2018 8:03:45 GMT -5
ALSO also, I know this isn't quite what you meant, but... '80s-style character designs! I miss having all protagonists and antagonists alike wearing giant spiky shoulder armor, dagnabbit. Spaulders are a lost art! -Tom In a more general sense, I like 80s or early-90s-style anime artwork more than what anime does nowadays. I dunno, somehow it feels like its gotten more boring, and its hard to put a finger on... everything from the designs being less colorful and seeming to prefer muted colors (much like everything else these days) to the designs themselves either being less exhuberant, or trying to make up for the lack of specialness by being over-designed (insert Tetsuya Nomura joke here). This was something I thought about during my recent fling with the Phantasy Star series. For as "generic" as the anime graphics in PSII looked, I still would rather have blue-haired Rolf with his small but apparently effective breastplate over... whatever the hell the franchise is doing now. I looked at images of PSO2 and just.... yeah. (That game also apparently has a story which takes place on Earth and stars a teenager or something, so just what the hell. What, is the next Star Wars movie gonna have Darth Vader being a high school gym teacher?) The last Phantasy Star I played was Phantasy Star Universe, in single-player story mode, which is NOT very well-liked by fans... but quite honestly, I loved it. It's SO CHEESY, yet feels SO MUCH like a '90s sci-fi anime in every single way -- even the dub is basically as gloriously bad as that of Golden Boy, which is an anime that's made 30x better by its endearingly awful English voice-acting. So I'm not quite on the same page as you here, in that I do enjoy the more modern designs as well (inasmuch as you can call the PS2-era Phantasy Star Universe "modern," anyway). But I get where you're coming from, as there's really nothing quite like anime sci-fi and fantasy character designs from the 8- and 16-bit eras. Without going into tooooo much detail (because I could talk your ear off about this!), the character depicted is "Teacher" from the indie homebrew MSX2 RPG "Izumic Ballade." Which I kind of fell in love with this year, and ATTEMPTED to fan-translate, only for it to fall a bit flat due to some major technical issues making fan-translation more or less impossible without either completely rewriting a huge chunk of the game's code or getting in contact with the game's original creator. The game's original creator, BTW, is the guy responsible for some of the most beloved indie shmups out there, including Judgement Silversword and Eschatos. Izumic Ballade was his first game, created entirely in MSX-BASIC while he was still in high school, and is the only RPG in his portfolio, with everything else being a shmup. And though it's clunky and prone to freezes and crashes, it's one of the most unique and bizarre RPGs I think I've ever played -- its story is all about proving to the world the importance of the bass clarinet, but is also ostensibly about aliens, and is also COMPLETELY postmodern in that it breaks the fourth wall more forcibly than basically any other game I think I've ever played. I hope to one day finish my fan-translation of it, one way or another, as I'd really like for more people to be able to experience its bizarre, dark, twisted storyline. Here's the fan-translated intro, at least, if you're at all curious to learn more about the game. It's very... MSX-BASIC. But also incredibly charming IMHO. And is where my avatar was taken from. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSnNQ3raGq8-Tom |
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Post by ZenithianHero on Nov 30, 2018 11:11:55 GMT -5
Pre-rendered backgrounds. That's a dying thing right? I saw a few years ago like Resonance of Fate and Bravely Default but JRPGs are trying to broaden their scope bit by bit.
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