Isometric rpgs hold up pretty well without being flatout "cartoony". Baldur's Gate 2 and Planescape for example.
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Games that visually can withold the test of time without being cell shaded/cartoonish.
- Thread starter Tahnit
- Start date
Rainbow Six: Raven Shield (2003)
Obviously it doesn't have a whole ton of polygons or sharp textures but it's visually consistent, lighting is not completely terrible etc. Gameplay is still the best in the series.
Screamer (1995)
Apart from the horrible draw distance it still looks pretty good! It's actually a shame that this game did not turn into a series as it could have easily been PC's Ridge Racer.
Games before PS3 era are usually the toughest when it comes to visuals, especially on consoles as 3D games then had a ton of mostly empty corridors in them without proper texture filtering and low poly characters. Pretty much anything in the PS3 era that doesn't have awful lighting will do just fine going forward.
Obviously it doesn't have a whole ton of polygons or sharp textures but it's visually consistent, lighting is not completely terrible etc. Gameplay is still the best in the series.
Screamer (1995)
Apart from the horrible draw distance it still looks pretty good! It's actually a shame that this game did not turn into a series as it could have easily been PC's Ridge Racer.
Games before PS3 era are usually the toughest when it comes to visuals, especially on consoles as 3D games then had a ton of mostly empty corridors in them without proper texture filtering and low poly characters. Pretty much anything in the PS3 era that doesn't have awful lighting will do just fine going forward.
I think a lot of games of the PS2 era still look good, granted you play them in the original way - that is to say on a cathodic TV.
Yes Halo is looking amazing. That first steps on that Halo world, the exact picture you posted, the sense of wonder, of seeing something you had never seen before, this was something incredible.
This.
Look no further than Quake II RTX to see just how big a difference lighting makes.
FZero GX, HL2, and arguably BOTW fit the bill. The latter was already outdated on release from a technical point of view, being on a less powerful platform; yet I find it more beautiful to watch than many other modern games.
MGS2
Reminder that this game came out in 2001
Damn, that's one slick game.
There is a lot of games this gen I can't imagine looking bad,games like Uncharted 4/TLL , Red Dead Redemption 2 and God of War has more stylish than realism,no way they will look bad,of course the new games will looks better,but at the point of making them look bad?No way,one game of the last gen that is still holding so well visually is God of War 3,thanks again the art.
"Games that can withstand the test of time"
*opens with a game from 2017*
... the fuck? 2030 you is going to laugh his ass off when he remembers this thread. :D
*opens with a game from 2017*
... the fuck? 2030 you is going to laugh his ass off when he remembers this thread. :D
Give No One Lives Forever 2 a new lighting system and it wouldn't look out of place. Unless this is considered cartoony
It's a really underrated masterwork in terms of lighting and style. It just evokes a very particular mood and doesn't try to do too much
The Halo games will definitely stand the test of time. I'd even argue from an art standpoint base Halo CE looks better than the anniversary graphics. When they made H2 Anniversary I believe they learned their lesson and instead of essentially re-doing the way shit looked they just bumped everything up.
I'll also vouch for Half Life 2. Source games in general hold up well.
I'll also vouch for Half Life 2. Source games in general hold up well.
Everything ages well when you develop a taste for it. Except NES games. Most of them are absolutely hideous.
I think Wip3out still holds up, unlike many polygonal PS1 games, the aesthetic is fantastic even today.
This is probably through an emulator, tough to get direct feed images of it at its default resolution but I still think it gets the style across well.
This is probably through an emulator, tough to get direct feed images of it at its default resolution but I still think it gets the style across well.
To be fair this just looks like borderlands without the cartoony lines
Even though Witcher 2 isn't that old compared to other games in here (released 8 years ago in 2011), I still think it looks damn pretty for such a old game
Even though it has lackluster facial animations, agressive sharpening effect and too intense bloom effect
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Even though it has lackluster facial animations, agressive sharpening effect and too intense bloom effect
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Shenmue II was released in 2001, and I think it has proved itself already.
It's not cartoony nor cell shaded, in fact it borrows heavily from real life Asian aesthetics. Add it some superb character modelling and cinematic camerawork, and you get this beauty (screenshots from the rerelease):
Stunning even 18 years later.
It's not cartoony nor cell shaded, in fact it borrows heavily from real life Asian aesthetics. Add it some superb character modelling and cinematic camerawork, and you get this beauty (screenshots from the rerelease):
Stunning even 18 years later.
These are good choices. Silent Hill 2 and 3 just have that grainy and gritty look to it that will never age poorly.
Really I think most 360 and forward games still look pretty good, or at least the high-end ones. There are occasional missteps, like the Halo 3 faces posted above, but otherwise, it all still looks good.
Yeah pretty much everything I was going to say has already been mentioned, The Metal Gear Solid series, Silent Hill series, REmake, various fighting games , I'd also say Tekken 4 and 5 are both still amazing not only to look at but to play too. I'd also say Devil May Cry 4 still holds up really well
Vagrant Story
DOA2 Ultimate kinda reached the logical conclusion of that art style. Everything since has just been incremental improvements.
Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate on Xbox. It had that super vibrant polished anime look with for its time very high polygon character models, and gorgeous, inspired stages, like no other 3D fighting game after it.
DOA2 Ultimate kinda reached the logical conclusion of that art style. Everything since has just been incremental improvements.
I'll even go so far as to say 4 looked really good too. But I think the darker lighting (and shadows) in 2-3 make them look a bit better
I agree with you 100 percent on this one. Silent Hill 3 especially looks good today.
REmake. The game will literally never not be gorgeous.
EDIT: beaten
I think this is legit the only great example.
I honestly disagree with the sentiment some people have that games that look great today wont always look great. I've been playing a lot of last-gen games lately that I'd missed out on at the time (and replaying some old favorites) and I'm surprised by how different my response is to a 360 game vs a PS2 game. Even more so if it's back compat upscaled or a remaster. Gears of War 3 looked absolutely incredible in 4K, and even Gears: Judgment looked pretty damn good without any upscaling. If anything it's the lack of commitment to even half-decent performance that holds that era's games back the most, but in games without those issues/remasters that's never a problem.
Yakuza 3 Remastered looks good to me, if not visually impressive. Yakuza 5 (the PS3 version) looks great to me, even if it runs fairly terribly on the PS3. If I find Mirror's Edge, Red Dead 1, GTA 4, Motorstorm: Apocalypse, and many other games to be good looking 10+ years on today, I'll probably never change my mind.
Yakuza 3 Remastered looks good to me, if not visually impressive. Yakuza 5 (the PS3 version) looks great to me, even if it runs fairly terribly on the PS3. If I find Mirror's Edge, Red Dead 1, GTA 4, Motorstorm: Apocalypse, and many other games to be good looking 10+ years on today, I'll probably never change my mind.
God, I love how they've faked the rim lighting. Probably the single coolest retro graphics effect. Every model that gets this treatment immediately looks a million times better, no matter how few polys it's composed of. Just... *swoon*Vagrant Story
Some games are still playable and look ok, but far and away the best example is REmake and Zero. Just replayed them recently and hard to believe those are almost twenty years old. Not only are they acceptable they are still downright gorgeous for the most part.
Only games close to those Two in my opinion are the prime games
Only games close to those Two in my opinion are the prime games
