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Post by wyrdwad on May 26, 2009 19:05:28 GMT -5
Ganelon: I don't really get how you can say that Ys I & II Eternal Story PS2 looked awful, yet Ys I & II Complete PC looked good, since the two games have *identical* graphics. Like, literally, Ys I & II Eternal Story is a 100% direct port of Ys I & II Complete, with a couple additions here and there, but absolutely no changes to the graphics. Now granted, the PS2 game isn't capable of displaying at a resolution that can match Ys I & II Complete on its maximum settings... but still, I'm kind of baffled by your statement, since the resolution really doesn't make THAT much of a difference... Ys I & II Chronicles on the PSP, too, is using the exact same sprite and tile art, though with new character portraits (and an option to switch back to the old ones if you don't like the new style). Anyway... my vote for best-looking 2D game of all time has been the same since 2001. PopoloCrois Monogatari II. Seriously, just look at this game in motion. Look at what the creators managed to do with sprites and tiles, and nothing else: Pietro and Narcia's date at the circus (the scene after the show itself, starting around 3:30, is the kind of thing I'm talking about): www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCopF6QlCgkPietro's little sister Elena asks to sleep with her big brother, and ends up being spirited away by haunting music during the night, along with all the other children in town (the sprite animation during this scene in particular is REALLY impressive, IMHO): www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5fJBz3t86UAfter defeating Zull, and meeting Leona for the first time (shows off lots of subtle character interaction, and segues really nicely into an FMV at the end): www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHVYCSpJCooIt's like an anime in miniature! The sheer amount of time and effort that it must've taken to hand-animate each and every movement of each and every sprite is simply mindboggling. I seriously can't think of any other 2D game that's impressed me that much with sheer level of detail alone. And the most impressive thing of all is that the WHOLE GAME is like that... every single cutscene is meticulously animated frame-by-frame, and even random villagers are shown performing complex tasks entirely with sprite animation. It's just... breathtakingly beautiful. Like the story itself. God, I love PopoloCrois. (: -Tom |
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Post by conn on May 26, 2009 19:31:16 GMT -5
Popping in again to add that Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean are absolutely gorgeous. Hell yeah! I don't like Tales of Phantasia in any incarnation, but the original SFC version looks absolutely excellent.    And while we're on the subject of RPGs, Golden Sun looks pretty damn nice too. |
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Post by kisai on May 26, 2009 20:05:17 GMT -5
I'm going to give love to Actraiser and Actraiser 2, because they have not been mentioned.
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Post by Revolver Ocelot on May 26, 2009 22:14:44 GMT -5
Ganelon: I don't really get how you can say that Ys I & II Eternal Story PS2 looked awful, yet Ys I & II Complete PC looked good, since the two games have *identical* graphics. Like, literally, Ys I & II Eternal Story is a 100% direct port of Ys I & II Complete, with a couple additions here and there, but absolutely no changes to the graphics. Now granted, the PS2 game isn't capable of displaying at a resolution that can match Ys I & II Complete on its maximum settings... but still, I'm kind of baffled by your statement, since the resolution really doesn't make THAT much of a difference... Ys I & II Chronicles on the PSP, too, is using the exact same sprite and tile art, though with new character portraits (and an option to switch back to the old ones if you don't like the new style). Anyway... my vote for best-looking 2D game of all time has been the same since 2001. PopoloCrois Monogatari II. Seriously, just look at this game in motion. Look at what the creators managed to do with sprites and tiles, and nothing else: Pietro and Narcia's date at the circus (the scene after the show itself, starting around 3:30, is the kind of thing I'm talking about): www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCopF6QlCgkPietro's little sister Elena asks to sleep with her big brother, and ends up being spirited away by haunting music during the night, along with all the other children in town (the sprite animation during this scene in particular is REALLY impressive, IMHO): www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5fJBz3t86UAfter defeating Zull, and meeting Leona for the first time (shows off lots of subtle character interaction, and segues really nicely into an FMV at the end): www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHVYCSpJCooIt's like an anime in miniature! The sheer amount of time and effort that it must've taken to hand-animate each and every movement of each and every sprite is simply mindboggling. I seriously can't think of any other 2D game that's impressed me that much with sheer level of detail alone. And the most impressive thing of all is that the WHOLE GAME is like that... every single cutscene is meticulously animated frame-by-frame, and even random villagers are shown performing complex tasks entirely with sprite animation. It's just... breathtakingly beautiful. Like the story itself. God, I love PopoloCrois. (: -Tom Dude, that PopoloCrois game looks indistinguishable from just about every NIS game... or any isometric view sprite-based game since the PS1 era. Stop fangushing! |
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Post by Smithee on May 26, 2009 22:17:49 GMT -5
I once saw a dick that was really a panda bear.
THAT IS FAN GUSHING. AND IT IS ALL OVER YOUR FACE.
-- No need to attack a jack. People all think different thangs, and all suck different wangs. It is just the pots that go clangs.
The Natsume NES games are pretty jazzy looking. And FEDA on SNES looks great. Also SUPER ROBOT WAR, x1,000,000,000,000,000,000 (because numbers are that big in the game)
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Post by wyrdwad on May 26, 2009 23:30:15 GMT -5
Revolver: I'm referring more to how PopoloCrois II looks in motion, not in still pictures. Watch the videos, and note the level of detail that went into each character's individual movements. Note how in that second video I posted, even without being able to understand a word of Japanese, you can tell what's going on from the subtle animations and movements of the sprites. No NIS game even comes close to that - even the Rhapsody games, which are among the best-looking of the bunch - nor does anything else I've yet encountered. PopoloCrois looks like every other isometric game at first glance, but it has an attention to detail that outdoes anything and everything else. THAT'S why I gush.
-Tom
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Post by Vendaval Este on May 27, 2009 3:13:30 GMT -5
Gonna have to disagree, the hand-drawn sprites taken from the prequels do not go well with the new pre-rendered sprites, hell, they even stretched some sprites just so they could be in proportion with others, like the Neue Ziel and Bygzam. If they couldn't draw everything by hand, they should have at least used pre-rendered graphics for all the sprites to give them more consistency. I don't think I can complain about the backgrounds in GBA2, while the original hand-drawn ones look nice and there's more of them, they're static and not very interesting. |
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Post by marginwalker on May 27, 2009 5:46:30 GMT -5
I can forgive all the messy faults of Gundam Battle Assault 2. If you're playing on an emulator that's one thing, but having it up on a big tv is really something else. Sorry wyrd but you're about to get crapped on again, watching those vids of popolocrois ii and reading what you wrote, it's like you were referring to a different game. I didn't see anything that wouldn't be like tying ones shoes to a veteran sprite animator. But I respect your passionate posting  I think some of the best looking 2d graphics come from the fighting genre, and probably simply because it lends itself so much to requiring good animation to make a playable game. And animating a fairly realistic human body with depth is no small feat. I just surfed fighters generation and picked out some things I liked. www.fightersgeneration.com/characters3/spidey-standingattax.gifSpidey always was the best animated marvel character capcom made imo. www.fightersgeneration.com/characters/demitri-snk-lowcape.gifDemitri in SVC Chaos. SNK guys love their capes. For ONE frame that's hardly noticeable Demitri is in full demon form. www.fightersgeneration.com/characters/hauzer-stance.gifA lot of Hauzer's animation is way choppier but his normal stance is damn nice. Love the way his head moves. I believe what he's doing is what Will Smith calls getting jiggy with it. www.fightersgeneration.com/characters4/yamazaki-holyshit.gifThis Yamazaki sprite was like SNK's swan song on the neogeo. The url says it all. |
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Post by wyrdwad on May 27, 2009 7:17:27 GMT -5
Never said you would. (: Thing is, you just don't see that in most JRPGs... people tend to cut corners, and simplify their animations to save time/money. PopoloCrois II is a game where the animators consistently did NOT cut even a single corner... every scene was animated in full, using up as many frames as needed to make it look exactly the way it was intended to, down to the last detail.
I just admire that dedication, and find it unusual amongst JRPG developers.
Ultimately, though, I noted it in here because I LIKE HOW IT LOOKS, DAMMIT. I mean, sheesh! There are no wrong answers to this! We post what we each consider to be the best-looking 2D games, and then we move on! We don't tell each other that WE'RE WRONG, 'cause that's just a dick thing to do!! (:
-Tom
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Post by marginwalker on May 27, 2009 7:40:29 GMT -5
Sounded as much. Just wanted to be a bastard and imply that the artists probably spent more time touching themselves than working on the game's graphics.
You know I don't think the video is doing it justice, if you want to sway people you're going to need sprite rips. You and your little jrpg characters that raise their little arms have not come prepared to battle sir!
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Post by Ganelon on May 27, 2009 9:33:35 GMT -5
Ganelon: I don't really get how you can say that Ys I & II Eternal Story PS2 looked awful, yet Ys I & II Complete PC looked good, since the two games have *identical* graphics. Like, literally, Ys I & II Eternal Story is a 100% direct port of Ys I & II Complete, with a couple additions here and there, but absolutely no changes to the graphics. Now granted, the PS2 game isn't capable of displaying at a resolution that can match Ys I & II Complete on its maximum settings... but still, I'm kind of baffled by your statement, since the resolution really doesn't make THAT much of a difference... Ys I & II Chronicles on the PSP, too, is using the exact same sprite and tile art, though with new character portraits (and an option to switch back to the old ones if you don't like the new style). Have you played the PS2 version? The resolution itself is pretty good and it's nice the filter is seemingly non-existent (although that causes plenty of text flickering). However, Ys Eternal wasn't made with scanlines in mind so having them in there while the PS2 tries to run everything at a pretty high resolution makes the whole screen resemble a blurry mess. Yeah, it looks like the PC version from screenshots but it's obvious when you put them side by side that the PC version looks far clearer and crisp. Chronicles will have a drastically cut resolution, which will likely make the details much less apparent. Gonna have to disagree, the hand-drawn sprites taken from the prequels do not go well with the new pre-rendered sprites, hell, they even stretched some sprites just so they could be in proportion with others, like the Neue Ziel and Bygzam. If they couldn't draw everything by hand, they should have at least used pre-rendered graphics for all the sprites to give them more consistency. Which sprites were pre-rendered? All the Gundam W and G Gundam ones? They look the same to me... |
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Post by Vendaval Este on May 27, 2009 9:48:13 GMT -5
All the Wing and G Gundam ones yes, along with RX-78 and Nu Gundam.
Maybe I made a needless complaint, but I usually always prefer the hand-drawn ones instead, and I tend to dislike big contrasts depending on circumstance.
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Post by Ganelon on May 27, 2009 10:33:53 GMT -5
Is there an easy way to tell between the pre-rendered and hand-drawn sprites? Nu Gundam should be all hand-drawn since it's been the same since GTBM1. It's easy to tell in Killer Instinct but it's tough to see here besides some shininess in some "parts." Are all the segmented sprites pre-rendered or only some of them?
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Post by justjustin on May 27, 2009 10:47:15 GMT -5
... Not gonna say a word at some of the choices mentioned! Just gonna post a picture.  Dogyuun! Toaplan, 1992. Colorful, detailed and intricate mechanical designs, moves fast, readable. Really nice stuff for it being 17 years old. I tried to make it look like its being displayed on a monitor but, uh, well it still looks okay. The best looking 2D games are all on the arcade (also home to the worst looking 2D games). If a game slacked on graphics or if it didn't wow the customer with its demonstration it died pretty fast, so they had to look good out of necessity. If I had to pick a truly best looking 2D game it would be something from Capcom or SNK/Nazca. |
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Post by susanismyalias on May 27, 2009 10:59:31 GMT -5
That brings a tear to my eye...
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