This style just ages well, doesn't it? I still play Zelda: Link to the Past every few years but I can't play Ocarina of Time even though it's probably the better game. That early 3D with the fogging and pop-in and muddy textures just doesn't hold up, but pixel art is timeless.
Yes. I stopped playing video games when 3d happened ( mid to end of the 90s) because most games were either uninteresting (3d for the sake of 3d), or plain ugly.
I started playing again during lockdown, and that was a bit of a shock - modern games are gorgeous, use 3d properly, and often enough have brilliant stories. I still play pixel art games - as you say, it’s timeless .
There are timeless early 3d games too. Metal Gear Solid or FFVII are popular examples, but there are also: Thief, Morrowind, Deus Ex, American McGee's Alice, and many more.
Then again, it is indeed a much different aesthetic than pixel art.
Ff7 is an interesting example : I’ve never understood the appeal of the original game which I’ve always found to be truly hideous, including when it came out. It looks like chunky pixel soup - I’d rather have 2D pixel art which looks clean.
Now, I played the remake recently - the game is actually excellent ! It’s just that at the time ( to me at least ) the original art was so ugly as to ruin the game / break immersion. This is an issue I’ve never had with 2D games, pixelated or not.
Yeah, I’d agree, I definitely wouldn’t classify FF7 as graphically timeless.
I think most people would agree that early 3D games (PSX and N64 era) - particularly ones attempting to achieve texture-mapped photorealism, like FF7, GoldenEye, Tomb Raider etc. did not age gracefully, at least where graphics are concerned.
Contrast that with something like Mario 64, which, while still chonky, looks way better because it’s so highly stylized.
ad_hockey · · focus · HN ↗
Agingcoder · · focus · HN ↗
I started playing again during lockdown, and that was a bit of a shock - modern games are gorgeous, use 3d properly, and often enough have brilliant stories. I still play pixel art games - as you say, it’s timeless .
thih9 · · focus · HN ↗
Then again, it is indeed a much different aesthetic than pixel art.
Agingcoder · · focus · HN ↗
Now, I played the remake recently - the game is actually excellent ! It’s just that at the time ( to me at least ) the original art was so ugly as to ruin the game / break immersion. This is an issue I’ve never had with 2D games, pixelated or not.
vunderba · · focus · HN ↗
I think most people would agree that early 3D games (PSX and N64 era) - particularly ones attempting to achieve texture-mapped photorealism, like FF7, GoldenEye, Tomb Raider etc. did not age gracefully, at least where graphics are concerned.
Contrast that with something like Mario 64, which, while still chonky, looks way better because it’s so highly stylized.