watching a video of someone playing an older game (not even THAT old) and constantly having to hear them go 'omg can you imagine how much more pretty and good this would be if it ran at 60+ fps with highest end graphics of the current modern games and in 4k???' over and over while also commenting on some graphics looking slightly muddy and how ugly and shitty 30 fps is
and i just cant help but get incredibly annoyed at that, cant you just appreciate the game for what it is?? the constant focus on smoother everything and graphics so detailed it looks faker than the real world is such a limited view on games- more polygons and higher res textures doesnt equal better ffs
i, and i might out myself with an unpoluar opinion here, but remakes are in my opinion often rather unecessary, just rerelease the old game, just make it avaible for people, officially, you dont have to reprogramm the entire thing!! maybe upscale it a little so it doesnt get stretched into a blurry mess if possible but even that i will work with no problem!! there are cases where its pretty much an entirely different game (FF7?) and i get seeing one of your fav old games get some new paint can be really cool, not arguing against that-
what i dont like is that those remakes replace the original as that isnt made avaible, only the new version- like i wish i could play windwaker on my switch, but i cant stand the "HD" remake of it and i know if it ever were to get ported it will only be that version like the original doesnt exist anymore
and my earlier point that many people consider more fps, more polygons, more resolution as automatically better
i dont need games to be running at 60+ fps, 30 is enough, sure id like it to run smoothly on that without huge drops, but when its stable 30, why would i need more? more often than not i prefer simplified graphics bc they often focus on the most important parts of what they are trying to achieve or work with an interesting style to compensate and i LOVE THAT, also id like to not have to download 100+ GB even when i would turn it on its lowest settings anyway, save me the space- and that is if i even got hardware that can run it at all, my computer struggles with slime rancher and i dont have the funds to buy the newest consoles nor computers
im not against remakes per se, but the fact that the old will more often than not disappear entirely and remain unavaible forever and that higher end graphics are automatically seen as better drives me nuts
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was talking about it the other day but its sad how we are never going to get really big budget games w/ funky artstyles again. like if you look at the majority of big budget releases lately, they are all kind of going for the same thing as far as actual modeling goes- hi fi, super detailed complex models that try to portray as much detail as possible. which is fine for certain games, but it makes me miss the big swings devs used to take.
take street fighter 4 for instance- despite being over 10 years old at this point, it still looks REALLY good. great art direction, has a weird painterly look so everything has a cool watercolor style to it, models are expressive, etc. and this was a BIG release, its not some indie game (where most big stylistic swings tend to be made nowadays).
compared to street fighter 6, which is going for photorealism (with strong choices made as far as animation and color goes) it looks dated in the context of graphics generally, but looks WAY better than its contemporaries from the same time period. my fear is that street fighter 6 wont look that great in 10 years time.
side note, its also why street fighter 5 was really only loved by hardcore fans. it does nothing particularly well! its a halfway point between realistic and artistic to the point where it feels like a side-grade rather than an improvement or even its own original idea!
whatever leaps were made in lighting and texture quality are essentially irrelevant here. fucking gross!
the thing is, i dont think this is a deliberate choice that devs are making right now. from what i can tell, recent rendering tech has made it way easier to achieve a handful of lately- hi fi LIGHTING, increased TEXTURE DETAIL and HI POLY COUNTS come to mind. these are cool, but if youre a dev who wants to make a triple A product, you kind of have to use whatever tech is on the table to make a product look cutting edge. none of those encourage taking wild stabs at cool art directions. devs used to use those cool art directions because it was the ONLY OPTION THEY HAD.
classic case being windwaker right. the gamecube was a huge graphical leap from the n64, where even getting a model to look like something was a challenge. compared to ocarina of time, windwaker looks absolutely fucking incredible. it got a lot of pushback at the time for being too kiddy, but really the strength of its style is a result of doing as much as they possibly could with the platform they were working on. no high poly counts, the shading tech was relatively simple, and the textures (while a huge improvement over the n64!) are still basic compared to what we have today. windwaker still looks impeccable to this day, and even the HD remaster they made which, ahaha, improved WHAT
LIGHTING and TEXTURE DETAIL. but without a real consideration for the original artstyle (or why it even existed... which was the gamecubes limitations) it just looks worse.
in response to this pushback (i think, idk i didnt work at nintendo at the time) they gave twilight princess a way more "realistic" look. but given the rendering restrictions of the time, it still has a fairly robust artstyle
proportions are more realistic obviously, but in order to achieve that realism without the kind of lighting tech we have now the "lighting" is BUILT Into the textures. look at links sword, how it kind of darkens near the hilt, or how the shadow on the keese's wings is just kind of painted in specific areas. i would argue that twilight princess looks a LOT like street fighter 4 in that area-
damn! they almost look like theyre from the same game! but twilight princess was celebrated for being "realistic" while sf4 was noted for having a funky watercolor style (thats built into the focus attacks even!). its so so smart, because the devs knew they couldnt go for photorealism (like so many games of the era tried at and completely failed at!) so they went for a mix of cool stylistic decisions that allowed a game to look GOOD in a subjective, artistic way.
Not that games don't try and apply artistic principles now, but its a lot less unique. look at mario odyssey
its just a beach. and it looks great, its well rendered, but its just a beach. colors are clearly intentional and very pretty, but it's nothin that special right now, probably will look even less special in 10 years even compared to levels in the same game.
what im curious about is when are we gonna get back to that kind of artstyle meets rendering tech! if ever! current tech makes it so devs are kind of forced to go down the same boring path. look at mortal kombat 1:
im sure there are some leaps in texture and lighting, but they keep taking shortcuts. all the faces are modeled after REAL peoples faces and they mocap for expressions/conversation, which gives a really boring look to it. the fact that mk11 and mk1 look so similar so many years apart (4 i guess isnt that much but there have been leaps!) is disappointing to me.
then you have tekken 8, which is like the best looking game ive ever seen. for a while i found it hard to put my finger on why, but my brother said something really smart i feel- they made all of these models by hand. theyre essentially digital statues. they didnt pull actual face models, they just worked on their features until it looked correct. on top of the lighting and texture work, it creates a look not unlike the renders tekken has been using for years. which is convenient for them, because they can finally match the kind of real-time fidelity they've been chasing for like 30 years
hell it looks BETTER than that. so what im trying to say is im hopeful that art direction will catch up with the kind of rendering tricks/strengths we have.
i think tekken 8 feels like how soul calibur 2 probably felt at launch. does a lot of the same things given the time period
i still think hi fi rendering doesnt make for a good looking game, but rather where the focus lies for the player. for tekken it makes sense that they would focus their horsepower on detailed models and stages- youre gonna be lookin at that forever. look at elden ring
texture wise, SUPER low res for 2022. maybe even 2020. but what they do with the horsepower is genius- they focus on scale to translate locations of objectives to a player while also reinforcing the feeling of adventure, on top of extremely strong choices in color and lighting. i hope, going forward, games focus on how they can use this kind of tech to reinforce a games "gameplay mission statement" while keeping strong artistic choices present rather than focusing on being able to wow someone with a couple of screenshots at the cost of BOTH of those things. im just ranting though french press got my ass
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The perfect Zelda game will literally just be a mixture of BOTW/TOTK and the older Zelda game.
I would love an open world Zelda game with numerous temples and collectibles scattered around. I kinda miss actually finding heart pieces in these games by doing side quests or just exploring. I also want an open world Hyrule with a bustling castle town that’s full of life. I was also want items like the hook shot back.
Twilight Princess’ side missions and temples designs and a BOTW/TOTK like map would be so fucking good. I just want them to mix these game designs together.
I also want them to port windwaker and twilight princess HD to the fucking switch already
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holy shit cel-shaded mario
i won't like. play it. for rpg reasons.
but cel shaded mario exists now! yaaaaay! seems neat!
(STILL LESS PRETTY THAN HD WINDWAKER AND OG JSR. HD WINDWAKER AND OG JSR PEAK CEL SHADED.)
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