How bad graphics needs to be before you can't tolerate it?

BriBri

Member
I find that 2D PS1 games hold up better than 3D PS1 games. I guess 2D just holds up better in general. FF6 is a prettier game than FF7 for this reason and holds up better graphically.
I find it fascinating that a lot of the latter Super Famicom titles look better graphically now then what was then 'cutting edge'.
 
I only care about 3 things graphically:
Aestethically pleasing (color scheme, design)
smooth framerate
Good image quality (no blur, no fuzzyness)

I enjoy the graphics of emulated ps2 games at 60 fps a lot more than I do something like halo or assassin's creed on consoles that runs at 25 fps with blur and artifacty moiree everywhere.

Witcher 1 is a 100x more appealing game because of the incredible color scheme in most of the areas and art than crysis 2 with it's awful color grading and plasticy uncanny look to everything.
 

Doczu

Member
I can't stand PS1 3D anymore. It's all because of that damn texture warping. Sadly even emulation can't repair that shit.
 

Bedlam

Member
I can live with blurry textures, low resolutions, a hitchy framerate and so on but I absolutely can't stand an ugly-ass art style.

Example:

pIA6UcS.png
 

Cartman86

Banned
The most distracting thing for me with graphics are hitches in frame rate. I don't mean a drop in frame rate from like 60 down to 15 occasionally or low frame rates for an extended period of time. I mean like short pauses that are just long enough to break continuity of motion. I've stopped playing games for this reason.

While it doesn't stop me from playing this is so annoying. Every Valve game I've ever owned has this. Especially HL2 and TF2.
 

deleted

Member
Graphics don't matter to me anymore, IF the game is fluent and has no screen tearing.

What's way more important to me is a coherent design. There are far to many games where the design is all over the place.
If you can design a game you should be able to pick a font that fits it. If you have an RPG, don't destroy the atmosphere with out of place icons, menus and font.
 

JNT

Member
Will sound like a broken record, but as long as the game is playable the way it is intended I can tolerate the game's visuals cranked down to shit.
 

ascii42

Member
I'm pretty good at reaclimating myself to older systems if I play them enough. One thing that helps is that I have a pretty good SDTV. The only standard def console I have hooked up to my HDTV is my Wii.
 
Funny thing, even though I ask about this, I'm actually fine with poor graphics if presented with a good art-style (and a low, fixed-resolution display). One of the things I've noticed is that Pokémon BW/BW2 still looks pretty good... Art comes into play a lot.

Usually things get bad really fast when your art doesn't translate well into poor graphics.
 
If we're leaving art-style out of the equation, which is almost impossible but for the sake of argument, there are a few things which make games almost unplayable for me:

Microstuttering: Hate it on PC but luckily I haven't encountered it in most games for quite a while. Can't even remember the last game which had it.

Blurriness: Not blurry textures but that vaseline-filter some games have. I can't think of any specific examples right now but it happens when the game is badly upscaled I think.

sub 30fps or inconsistent framerates: I already don't like playing at 30fps but anything below that just kills my enthusiasm. Even worse if it has (frequent) dips. Ocarina of Time with its 20fps is pretty damn awful but at least its locked (most of the time?).

Tearing: Needs no explanation, looks terrible.

Choppy/incomplete/ugly animations: This is also self-explanatory.
 

Jinko

Member
I still play games from the late 90's sometimes and they're fine, but Outcast is just unplayable for me. Don't know why. There's something..... wrong with the graphics in motion. Probably the voxel-engine.

Every non-hardware-accelerated 3d-engine (before 1998) is just too pixelated for me to play. Too many large square pixels. Sorry. 2d games are fine.

Haha that video had me laughing out loud, running animation fail :D
 
Gameplay > Graphics. If it plays well then the graphics really don't matter for I.

But if you don't think that graphics impact gameplay, or one's perception thereof, you're simply lying to yourself.

For me, it's more the strangely unintuitive nature of many old games that gets in the way more than the graphics. The shitty user interfaces, the poor instruction on how to play the game, the lack of direction given to the player. These are things that go along with bad graphics a lot of the time, so it's easy to associate them more directly in an ad hoc manner.
 

injurai

Banned
I thought and still think Killzone 2 looks incredible. I thought Killzone 3 looked like shit (played like it too)

Also as others said it's cart got considerably shittier as well.
 
I really want to get into Xenoblade but the graphics are a huge barrier to my enjoyment. Same goes with the Last Story.

That's not to say I dismiss most Wii games. Mario games are stylized enough that I can still enjoy them and there are plenty of great titles that actually look really good.

I think with an RPG experience I need something more graphically these days.

I'm not sure where this post is going but I'll just say it depends on the type of game it is. An RPG or any sort of heavy narrative experience or FPS/action game needs to be at least PS3/360 levels for me. But I will give a lot of leeway for platformers/kart racers etc.
 
This is one of the problems I have with games attempting to look ultra-realistic. They inevitably fail, and in a few years' time have been so outclassed that they look ridiculous.

That said, graphics aren't everything. Example: if you refuse to play 8-bit games in black and white (original Gameboy) then you're missing out on some great ones.
 
There's more to a game than its graphics, you can make me play one with shitty graphics. However if the game provides me with no entertainment nor at least a good thing, graphics might be the first thing I would rage about.
 

PKrockin

Member
Under the Nes generation, it becomes hard for me to like it.

atari2.png

I thought this for a long time too, but I was exposed to some Commodore 64 games recently and I quite liked some of them, like Space Taxi.

It helps a lot when the gameplay isn't as bland and shallow as the graphics.

Na9quNF.png


edit: actually, the C64 was first released in the early '80s, wasn't it? I suppose that puts it roughly in the 8-bit generation.
 

Jinko

Member
But if you don't think that graphics impact gameplay, or one's perception thereof, you're simply lying to yourself.

I duno I find games these days a lot less enjoyable for some reason, I think there was a sense of charm to old school games which new ones just don't have.

Probably why I prefer cartoony looking games over realistic ones.
 

vareon

Member
It's when developers fail to implement their artistic choices in the game for me. Like, a photorealistic game with low poly count and the like.
 

godspoken

Member
I tend to turn down a lot of settings when I play on PC because I don't notice most improvements outside of still screenshots anyway. If you have good textures and lighting everything else tends to look good in motion in my experience. Heck, I even enjoyed Sin and Punishment: Star Succesor's graphics a lot because of their style, even though N64-era 3D generally sucks.
 

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Many DS 3D games were just... I couldnt do it. Phantasy Star 0 was the main culprit, couldnt do it to myself. Made my fucken eyes hurt.

Oh yeah, and Wii stuff when I converted to my 46" HDTV. Console was as good as dead when the old SDTV was thrown out.
 

anddo0

Member
Graphics mean nothing. I can play anything going back to Atari.

Poor gameplay, bad controls, framerate and performance issues overall matter more.
 
depends on the game really....
disgaea graphics won't bother me even now..
zelda tp on an hd tv....... well that's a WHOLE different matter..
 

Coen

Member
The closest I can think of, are some of the complex 3D Saturn games. I love it to death, but a game like Burning Rangers, with all the effects it is trying to push, just ends up looking messy. Strangely enough, I still enjoy some games others deem unplayable on N64 and PSone, like Perfect Dark or Ridge Racer Type 4.
 

Pejo

Member
Like a few others have said, it depends on the "range".

I can deal with (and actually love) 8bit and 16bit graphics. It's probably partially nostalgia but i've always been a fan of pixel art.

2D art is similar in this respect, i like most of it except the "shiny" flash-esque stuff. The whole way from Donkey Kong arcade to Rayman Legends I find them really great.

3D however, i find it hard to stomach most PS1 and below games. The original Starfox, while fun, is a terrible terrible mess to me now. N64 games are especially bad because of the mud factor.

It also, more recently, kills me that I have to play such a beautiful game as Xenoblade Chronicles with such a shitty resolution on the Wii. Damn them, damn them to hell.
 

Double D

Member
I usually don't get too bothered by a lack of graphical fidelity. I will say, though, that certain games have little nagging things that bug the shit out of me. The most recent example is Rage. I just started playing it on PC. Game looks fantastic. That is until you walk up close to literally anything that has a texture. I really have no idea what I'm talking about but it's like you get up close to anything and it looks like you are viewing it through night-vision goggles. It's just distracting me at this point, probably because I have never encountered anything like this.
 
[8-bit MMOs]

I actually enjoy 8-bit and especially 16-bit 2d graphics a lot (one of my favorite XBLIG games was Mamotte Kishi); however, I have a lot of pet peeves with 3d games, I can't stand low framerates, screen tearing or unresponsiveness (admittedly, the later may be more gameplay than graphics). I also would rather have resolution than polygon count. Someone said that they'd rather play HD, 60FPS PS2 emulated games and I have to concur, many emulated PS2 games look so much better than the mess many "current gen" games are, even (or especially!) high profile ones.
 

Oppo

Member
As long as the bad graphics don't hinder the gameplay (i.e. so blurry I can't tell the enemies from the background or something), I don't mind.

Yah, this. Aesthetics can range wildly but frame rate, tearing, input lag, judder and jankiness are bad.
 
I can't go back to Xbox/PS2/GC visuals. Almost can't stomach it.

For some weird reason, my mindset looks at indie games and 2D games differently and I can tolerate them.

This sorta

Some games like Bully, the gta games, jak and daxter, sly Cooper, Mario, halo etc can look great but others holy shit
Like for example, I bought dead to rights for $1 at a yard sale and holy shit I can't play it cause of the graphics, boggled my mind, also true crime streets of LA

But every other gen, 8-bit,16 bit, PS1(mostly) N64, I can play perfectly fine
 

Corky

Nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.
3D games from the ps1-era or just atari-era games. Other than that bad graphics aren't something I think of.

Ironically I still think (certain) nes and snes games hold up great.
 
Gave up on Skyward Sword for a number of reasons, but the bug ugly cluttered visuals weighed more than the other reasons together. I'd blame the Wii, but even the Zelda team has managed to work around the hardware better with Wind Waker so that's not it.
 

VandalD

Member
I'll play pretty much anything except unmodded Dwarf Fortress. I'm far more interested in a game running well than looking pretty.
 
As someone who put hundreds of hours into Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 I can say that they don't bother me at all as long as the framerate is good.
 

-KRS-

Member
Considering I still go back to play N64 games and can enjoy them for what they are, I'd say pretty fucking bad. Like really terrible. But it depends on the game of course and what the game is trying to do graphics wise.

Edit: In general though, if a game has brown, boring colors everywhere and an unappealing artstyle and ugly characters. That's my line I guess. So a lot of N64 games do apply, sure. But so do a LOT of the current gen games as well.
 

Philia

Member
It really depends on the game. I can tolerate some graphics like on the Saturn but then I've played this...

27-granstream_95.jpg

Granstream Saga

Its not the polygons themselves that bothers me (lol ff7), but the clunky combat that ensued with those... URGH.
 

Evolved1

make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
I would rather trade IQ for better animation/physics. I would trade it for better draw distance/pop-in.

I would trade it for framerate. And I won't tolerate screen tearing.

I'd trade texture resolution for better AA.

In a perfect world you have all those things at once. But if I had to trade...
 
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