The Appeal Of Older Graphics 

Can I just say... that Hallow Knight Fountain, with the Activate Windows in the corner, feels way more sombre with the watermark there than without in a really weird aesthetic way.

No shadows, or shadows, pick

Hollow night is shadows, nice try

>she

That gets my willy going silly

Realism with art direction is cool tho.

I get what you mean but hyperrealism doesn't exclude art direction

This is why Elden Ring and BOTW / TOTK still look better than Red Dead Redemption 2, despite the latter being released on an extremely underpowered handheld

@@anonymous01201 "look better" is still just a preference. RDR2 isn't just throwing realistic assets on a map, its a well researched and developed look, where the subject matter worked best with a very realistic setting.

Every time.

YES!

Exactly kind of like how 90s anime is also an aesthetic

like its batter than being so real game now so real they even lose their art style

Except when talking about Scarlet and Violet. Then suddenly it’s bad. 🤣

@@aintthatapotofeffluck8926 it can be done well and it can also be done badly lol I stand by pokemon works better in pixel art!

Fax......"too many cooks in the kitchen ruin the stew." Same thing happens in a lot of movies that get canned down the road too.

Woah this is a great perspective

PFP checks out

It's easy to understand why industries are obssesed with realistic graphics. Just think why live action is taken as "more adult" than animation, and there you have it. It's wrong, of course, but it hasn't changed for nearly a century, has it?

because realistic graphics makes it simple to outsource to people or buy random assets that already exist. With an ideosincratic art direction you add a shiton of design resourcces needed for every single thing, and is hard to hire people to fit into it. When a game becomes too big is almost impossible to do every single asset that way, realistic is the faster and cheaper way to produce more stuff, like all the bloat open world games have.

I know right, I’m just standing here making dinner and it feels like my friend is over at the kitchen table geeking out and it’s just so much fun

@@ledojaeger7474 Here making speech about things they are passionate about is so fun, also what you have for dinner?

@@kirbythings garlic chicken with mashed purple potatoes and savory carrots. I got the carrots reeeal good this time. Thanks for asking haha!

That video about anime backgrounds was peak

@@ledojaeger7474 pillowy mounds of mashed potatoes, perchance?

😂 so good

Peak

As an actual older gamer who grew up in the 90’s, I was legitimately choked up at that moment. And at “You’ve reached the internet pitstop, would you like to rest?” (Chrono Trigger is a gut-punch nostalgic blast for me in general)

Same here, my personal guy punch is the DKC2 sunset

I absolutely agree, I love the way he does this as well, so much more thought and care is put into every frame and it goes a long way.

I absolutely love and appreciate the dedication to the craft and the lova and appreciation shown to all of these games especially JET SET RADIO!

Same with gen 5. THEY MOVE IN BATTLE

@@raptortown I love gen 5 as well, but gen 4 reminds me of my childhood

i miss pokemon pixel graphics sooooo bad 😭

Soul Silver & Black & White 2 were the BEST pokemon games! The 3DS 3D pokemon games were the beginning of the end…

It's gen 3 for me

OHHHH that explains so much!! I love shape language so much

Interesting idea but I don’t think it *completely* holds up. When we were playing those older games as kids they were on CRT televisions. There was a bloom that smoothed the image, which isn’t something you get now. So roundness definitely was possible. I mean just look at Yoshi, for example. But of course it’s more complex than that - Boos and Goombas were also largely round. The danger comes from the fact they look angry, the colour, movements… and that they kill you 😮 haha

@jimmahgee Well, i'm not just talking about the enemies. I'm talking about the general uncanny nature of these games. Also, it's important to note that CRTs certainly smoothed things you they didn’t get around the overall polygonal look of everything. There's a reason why people knew Lara Croft had triangle boobs. And these days, when people do demakes or replay old games, they see these on modern screens so they see that jaggedness.

@@marche800 I just don’t buy it, there’s far more context and it all works together to produce the experience, including what the viewer brings. Mario 64 didn’t look “uncanny” and “dangerous” to me as a child. It was dangerous in some respects but in others I found it beautiful. In Ocarina of Time Kokiri forest felt safe, and Hyrule field during the daytime was full of potential. When I studied animation at university shape theory and silhouette were an important part of character design but they aren’t the “be all and end all” - once you have colour, movement, facial expressions, music, they all work in concert.

@jimmahgee Well there’s also the fact that our imaginations tend to fill in the blanks when it comes to things we saw as kids. We got what things were supposed to be and extrapolated from there. I've heard tons of people say they thought a game they loved looked better than it actually did. Though more to the point, I'm not trying to say that all polygonal games are inherently threatening, but there are definitely points where the uncannyness of the game design enhanced spooky elements. Like deadhand. When Deadhand was made smooth in the 3ds version of OOT, he became less threatening. The jankiness of his model made a creepy design genuinely terrifying. I'd say the same for redeads or even RE zombies.

So accurate

Honestly mainly cud to how they cut corners in areas of 3d animation where there's limits . It's why I think making a game with absurd high polycounts but limited animation variety is obnoxious.

Nailed it

Bruh, the mana series???

straight up play the time gear theme all the way through and im finna cry, much less with "I'll always remember you"

I haven’t gotten Explorers of Sky yet but I HAVE played Red Rescue Team and the character animations alone make me so happy I have to hold back physical reactions.

I agree, nobody else on youtube does that. This dude has created a really unique style for his vids

Hiiii

wow

Of course if it's well done. This is why I don't want my work to be realistic.

not true, i hate stuff like one piece and can't inmerse myself in something thats too cartoony

@@darkzeroprojects4245 and you can't draw so its a convenient excuse

@@j.2512 Well unrealistic deosn't necessarily mean cartoony. Also movies/shows are much more harder mediums to get immerse to than videogames. My theory is just since you already know it is not visually realistic unconsiously you would not compare it to real life. I also think consitancy is also have a role in this because when animations get worse or get better we notice pretty much instantly. I think a lot of "realistic" games suffer from non realistic animations too.

@@j.2512 That's a you problem then.

its because back then videogames weren't sjw crap with black lesbians

I would love to see your low poly game whenever it comes out! There is so much charm in that style.

There is a reason PS1 style is popular for horror games. The fog in many games created an atmospheric and claustrophobic feeling, and the weird dithering and wobbly geometry creates a surreal feel. I also think the N64 style lends itself to a great atmosphere and is also great for cartoony aesthetic. Bright and colorful games like Mario and Banjo Kazooie excelled on N64 for a reason. People who complain about this have definitely never made a game. I would rather complete a game in a "limiting" art style like low-poly than not finish a game at all. Making professional quality 3D is very, very time-consuming, especially if you are not particularly skilled in that discipline.

That's crazy, that's like saying any artist who still draws with pen and paper is inauthentic because we now have digital art programmes they could be drawing with instead.. physical limitations don't have to be FORCED by circumstances they can be embraced and used DESPITE technological advancement

​@@darth6129is there a noticeable difference between the styles? I mean, aside from N64 loading faster but from less data than CDs

its not only unoriginal but 99% of time isn't even real pixel art or real psx graphics, Most of that stuff is done with scripts anyways , Blender hsa code that automatically makes sprite effects which everyone uses to fake it , it doesn't look or feel like the original thing and its just an excuse to be lazy and do something low effort

FF7 pre renders are ugly asf, and makes the areas confusing at times. Ff8 now that’s where pre renders are beautiful

I got confused at the mechanical hand, after Aerith's house, took me ages to realise how to navigate that part as a kid. ​@@lulu_TheWitchBoy

@@UltimateGattaioh yeah now that I remember, that was confusing. Well it seems I see through rose tinted glasse then. I still love the style though.

@@high.level.noob. not entirely rose-tinted glasses, i played ff7 for the first time like 4 months ago and i didn't find them all too confusing, a couple were for sure, but the large majority of them were just jaw dropping, whether that's cuz they actually were or cuz of what they were aiming to portray, i'm not sure. that game had a very good art direction though, imo.

@@lulu_TheWitchBoyI disagree, the low poly character models are cool. It’s like the artists made origami versions of each character.

It's also because they replace those old unique assets with generic new redesigns like a beautiful wall with cryptic text and crystals is now replaced with generic stonewall made of normal rocks and nothing else the colors are different too and artstyle is all over the place, the whole vibe is just bland like any other new game

​@@samhein321The Demon's Souls remake completely ruined the horror aesthetic and oppressive dread of the original game. The remake just looks more like generic fantasy. They made Flamelurker look like a WoW character. And don't even get me started on the soundtrack.

I think it is also differs from person to person, some might find games such as mgs1 or silent hill to be realistic looking. Especially when played in original resolution. But when you have a higher resolution the illusion goes away quite quickly (i.e in a remaster with just higher resolution and framrate).

you'll go crazy when you learn about this low graphics medium called books.The crazier part is , they still make them!!!

i also feel like with games, a massive part of the appeal is escapism and just being in another world. I feel like the more "realistic" something is, the less otherworldly it is. Like if it's realistic graphics, you gotta add personality somehow for some worldbuilding, or it's gonna feel a bit bland

because its piss easy with blender and people are lazy and are using the nostalgia excuse to get asspats on amateur work . Most of the time it doesn't look at all like the real thing its mimicking and its not following any of the parameters or original restrictions, its a gimmick. Low poly models with no textures are just trivial to make in 2024

@@j.2512 Yeah, nice gatekeeping dude

Lol thx man!

You’re right. My daughter is 4 and she’s the same. Instead of asking ‘why’, they see it for the beauty it has.

i remember adults in the 90s saying it looked weird and shitty and didn't get why us kids liked it. I don't see kids today wanting that when given the option to choose between that and newer titles, If devs back then had more tools they would have used them to not make their asset look like jagged ass

The limited capabilities of the time did severely limit what could be done with making shit like organic cause the hardware simply can't afford smooth looking shapes, so unless the people working on the specific game knew what they were doing everything just looked like an unappealing geometric mess, the art direction needs to be extremely on point to make those games look any good, not to mention that the 3d view meant more complex movement was required to make the characters seem believable, while in 2d you can just have a character sprite on a JRPG flip a 180 without any animation of them turning and no one will question it cause it matches the level of detail of the rest of the game, if a character just rotates 180 degrees in a 3d game it will just look wrong cause the three-dimensional perspective feels too "realistic" to allow fir that movement. Even just PS2 games aged a lot better in this department cause, while not realistic, in a sense they are kinda realistic enough to achieve at least the bare minimum of what people want to see in a 3d game. Like reasonably smooth models with only some visible edges that are detailed enough to convey the intricacies of a character be it "real" or cartoon looking, like their expressions, hand gestures and even hair to a degree abd sane can be applied to the environments, the animations are just detailed enough to convey most things you'd wanna see like a character properly holding something or have stuff like bushes react to your character when walking on them, and in general it's all kind of the bare minimum of what people have come to expect from modern 3d games in general be it realistic or cell shaded, triple A or indie. The PS1 simply lacked on a lot of these things abd had to make up for it in other ways which not all games did successfully just as even modern games fail to account for their limitations. It's also worth remembering that fir every Super Mario 64 there's like a thousand shitty shovelware games that just looked and played like ass even back in the day.

He's a zoomer cut him some slack. He didn't grow up nor understands what's made that aesthetic popular even when it was new.

@@that1zombi3kid nga i'm a "zoomer" i'm younger than this guy wtf does that have to do with anything

5:24

@@Jordan-jv1tzthat's pokemon

@@VI_universe5:16 *

Real fun and short game

Yeah especially the green scarf in Front of the green Screen was a great idea. 😂

@@bobswarley7512 omg i was like why is no one talking about the green scarf and clothes hahaha

all those old games were AAA once

@@j.2512 I think we have it best these days with indies carrying the torch of the experimental nature of the games around the millenium. Back then I would imagine crunch and overworking was already a problem even though people got to be more creative in those game companies. These days anyone can have an idea for a game and work on their project for however long it takes without higher ups breathing down their necks.

@@maaki50 No they don-t, every indie "spiritual succesor" is a cheap bootleg of the oldschool AAA game they are trying to mimick, is always worse and much less creative. Indie devs only use the nostalgia and aesthetics as an excuse to be lazy. Like 99.999999 of retro inspired indies are shovelware and pretty much nothing really measures up to the stuff AAA 90s devs made.

@@j.2512 I see you don’t know what the 99.9999% of 90s AAA games were… fucking shovelware! You just don’t remember them because they were quickly forgotten about. Also can you name like 10 shovelware indies since there seem to be so many of them.

This. Ocarina of Time’s overworld is small, and it is sparse. But Hyrule Field still _feels_ large because of how empty it is. It may take less time to travel from one side to the other than in the BotW/TotK Hyrule Field, but it _feels_ just as large if not larger, _because_ your brain has to fill bits in.

Yeah zoomer, everything is liminal, what a cool buzzword

@@j.2512 okay I tried to leave this be but I keep seeing this same sentiment so I’m gonna take it out on you. OP is entirely justified in their use of liminal space here. Liminal simply means “between”, but it carries connotations of being precariously balanced. OP is referring specifically to liminal spaces, as in areas that hit the uncanny valley - just normal enough to be recognisable but with something unsettlingly wrong about them, that’s often (but not always) hard to pinpoint or summarise. This is where the “precariously balanced” connotation comes in, as there’s a sweet spot for maximum unsettling-ness in the uncanny valley - go more realistic or more unusual and you evoke less instinctual revulsion/fear. Blocky polygonal graphics like the PlayStation or N64 styles do often bump up against the uncanny valley. They’re juuuuust on the far-enough-from-normal-to-be-cartoony-or-cute side of the uncanny valley. A classic example of this is the Ben Drowned creepypasta, where a sprite used in an N64 game that was intentionally bumping into the uncanny valley by being unusually detailed is used as part of proof of a particular copy of the game being haunted. On a more metatextual level, low-poly art styles often intentionally resemble pop-up books, heavily associated with early childhood for most people; by taking something resembling this early developmental milestone and making it intentionally unsettling, a sense of fear is achieved. This is the same concept as what made Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared or Five Nights At Freddy’s successful, by imitating children’s television or playground-arcade-restaurants, respectively. “Liminal spaces” are usually when a place that should be filled with people, and is also often transitional (e.g. a hallway), is emptier and _far_ larger than one would expect. Low-poly games also tend to embody this by having large empty spaces that are pointless to interact with; they can evoke a sense of agoraphobia with their scale, and indeed in low-poly horror games often do.

i laughed my ass off when he said "she" when referring to the dev , i just knew it was gonna be a trooner, every "female" programmer is.

you also thought "this is probably easier than actually learning the real stuff and can get likes for less effort" which is true, nowadays pixelation is just a blender script and hipsters go bananas for something that isn't even hand crafted

@@j.2512 you managed to self report, congrats.

Thank you! That’s a big goal with my scripts and content instead of a video essay more of a hang out with a friend who has a bunch of stuff to talk about

I'm not exactly sure what happened tbh I did everything as I normally do but the audio all came out a bit weird :(

​@@InternetPitstopRU-vid be like that sometimes :/ I'm still thankful for getting to watch this content in the first place. Best of luck to you!