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[Spring-Loaded]

God of War is pretty bad.

The developers all got this tattoo:

 

[Pyrrhus]

It's monospaced... which is something that hasn't been particularly common in Japanese games since the GBA.

I thought monospacing was the preferred way with Japanese text. I heard it improved legibility or something along those lines? Not so?

 

[Plague Doctor]

Does any game use the Bleeding Cowboys font? That would be my vote. I'd irrationally avoid that game at all cost no matter if it is GOAT.

 

[magnetic]

I can't post it right now but the original Etrian Odyssey DS font as abysmal.

 

[data]

I thought monospacing was the preferred way with Japanese text. I heard it improved legibility or something along those lines? Not so?

sure was way harder for me to read what was written there, but might just be because i'm a gaijin

 

[Ludger Kresnik]

I can't post it right now but the original Etrian Odyssey DS font as abysmal.

 

[Herne]

Fixed.

Spoiler

Seriously, I love the game to death, but there's not a single thing I can call pretty in it.

That being said, Bannerlord seems to improve the visuals a lot.

The engine was developed by a guy with some help from his wife, I believe. Bannerlord has a dedicated team and a brand new engine. It's looking pretty good!

 

[Lord Azrael]

The newest Pokémon games.

Why would they do this? Why would they change the iconic font from previous games? The new font looks cheap as hell.

 

[Muffdraul]

Times New Roman is normally a perfectly fine and unobtrusive font. But whenever I see it in a game, I want to retch. It simply doesn't belong in games. Ever.

 

[Aeana]

Times New Roman is normally a perfectly fine and unobtrusive font. But whenever I see it in a game, I want to retch. It simply doesn't belong in games. Ever.

What games have you seen use it?

 

[magnetic]

Yup, worse than I remember! The newer games all have great fonts, though.

 

[Nocturnowl]

Not the worst but my first thought was Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire, fortunately they fixed that messy look when it came to the Emerald release.

While I'm at it, what was the name of this hellbeast of a font and why did second stringers like it so much in the early aughts?

I like to think HM: A Wonderful Life serves more as an example of hideous text noise in games.

 

[-Horizon-]

Wow that font in the OP. It just looks weird and badly placed in the text panel. Like it should be more in the middle and not all on the left covering the character's faces.

 

[Muffdraul]

What games have you seen use it?

The last example I can think of is probably the latest Thief. [EDIT: It was in Darksiders 2, don't remember if it was in 1] I want to say they often use it in WRPGs like Elder Scrolls. WoW. Maybe it's not actually Times New Roman, but whatever it is it's that same typical serif style.

 

[Mental Atrophy]

The newest Pokémon games.

Why would they do this? Why would they change the iconic font from previous games? The new font looks cheap as hell.

This font is terrific and highly legible. What criteria makes it hideous?

 

[KidB]

When I first started playing Xenoblade Chronicles X, I thought that my vision had gotten worse because I couldn't read the text without getting close to the TV. Seriously, the font size is terrible.

 

[hear4beer]

Don't know if this counts but for the original Lost Planet on x360 the text was so small and condensed that i literally couldn't read ANYTHING from my couch and forced myself to play that game from about 3 feet in front of a 32' TV.

 

[DISSESHOWEDO]

The Witcher 3, before the patch! Was thinking my vision got worse, even though i wear glasses?!?

 

[Backfoggen]

I can't stand the MGS5 subtitle font

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

Don't have any screenshots, but the font in FF4 Steam was straight-up broken on my computer. Lines and stuff between letters.

 

[samn]

I find it hard to read the fonts in Shogun 2 and Crusader Kings 2.

Shogun 2 also has a bug where in one of the DirectX modes, all text is slightly blurred/darkened at the edges.

Firaxis know how to do great readable text - Civ, XCOM are all good.

 

[TechJunk]

The funny part is that this is not a font decision, this is a bug (that probably they didn't catch because they're not used to western characters).

Basically, the baseline of the font is not defined, so the game is using the bottom of the character image as the baseline of the font, creating weird effects when there is a character with descender.

Thanks for the logical explanation. That makes sense.

 

[21x2]

What games have you seen use it?

I recall To The Moon using rasterized Times New Roman for all text.
It's probably due to the game being made in RPG Maker, but I couldn't play it for more than an hour before that fast alone made me quit.
Shame. I wanted to like it, but in a game where the story is central, not having a passable font is detrimental, at least to me.

 

[Hockey123]

I can't imagine anything being much worse than the final boss text in Dragon Quest V DS. I'm unable to post it right now though.

 

[KraytarJ]

Not the look, but the size:

I hate that shit, how is anyone supposed to read that while sitting a decent amount of space from their TV. It's so god damn annoying to have to sit closer to my TV just so I can read what's happening.

 

[rhandino]

oh god, I forgot about this!

I love the fonts they have been using since EO4 though.

 

[falconxcrunner09]

Halo 5's subtitles are pretty terrible. Game has such high production value but the font and color used does not match the overall quality of the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hpZ27ygKOA

 

[digdug2k]

This thread reminds me of hours spent as a kid trying to figure out if the save code for a game had a 0 or an O in it. Although usually I think that was just my handwriting's fault, not the game's (but sometimes it was the game!)

 

[StoneFox]

Tales of Symphonia

I... I actually liked this font and got sad when it was replaced in the HD port. Might just be a nostalgia thing though.

I like that Japanese games often have weird fonts, makes them stand-out over the horribleness that is Arial or the blandness of Times New Roman. I mean, I can't even imagine something like Kingdom Hearts with bland-looking text, it needs the more cartoon-y text like it has now. I don't think it's exactly Comic Sans, but it's pretty close.

 

[News Bot]

The biggest mistake in the HD remaster of the Resident Evil remake is the font. They switched out the excellent mood-setting typewriter font for some Times New Roman shit.

 

[nan0]

That weird smooted pixel-font that several DS games used:

The "m" is totally screwed and it also looks much worse on the DS screen.

 

[Hockey123]

Here's a video of the abysmal font Dragon Quest V that starts around 30 seconds in (final boss spoilers).

 

[UnemployedVillain]

When I first started playing Xenoblade Chronicles X, I thought that my vision had gotten worse because I couldn't read the text without getting close to the TV. Seriously, the font size is terrible.

I think it's less the font and more the size

 

[Sun Bather]

Now the game had many problems, but silent hill downpour just... No. Stop that. I know you got Korn and all as music, but please.

 

[VE3TRO]

Time for this image to be brought back!

Baha there it is.

 

[MGrant]

Diablo 2. It was impossible to tell 5s and 6s apart initially. Everything else is pretty annoying, too.

 

[CarbonFire]

Not the worst font in the world, but I'm not a fan of some of the fonts they're using in DX:MD:

Fonts in HR were great, not sure why they decided to change them :/

 

[Perfect Cha0s]

*insert pic of FFXIII UI here*

 

[BrendanSinclair]

The in-world font for Omikron: The Nomad Soul. Check out the sign for the hospital:

I played the game on the Dreamcast, so it was also standard-def blurry on top of this.

 

[Tigersprite]

I thought it worked quite well in Harvest Moon, actually.

 

[Regiruler]

The newest Pokémon games.

Why would they do this? Why would they change the iconic font from previous games? The new font looks cheap as hell.

I agree with this. The font change was unnecessary.

 

[BiggNife]

Honestly the color choices here are the biggest issue, though obviously that font isn't too good.

 

[Onaco]

What I understand from this thread is no font is liked by anyone. Please show me examples of good fonts, since everything has already been torn apart at this point. I'm genuinely curious about this now.

 

[Icyflamez96]

nah that font is hideous. which font? all of them.

looks like a f2p ios game with all of those fonts. awful awful stuff.

They look great to me.

 

[Peterthumpa]

Not the worst font in the world, but I'm not a fan of some of the fonts they're using in DX:MD:

Fonts in HR were great, not sure why they decided to change them :/

I'm almost sure that those were placeholders for the first gameplay reveal. I believe they're going to change it.

 

[RedToad64]

Conker's Bad Fur Day. It looks especially bad when the text is red.

DS System Font is notorious for games smashing the letters together in as little space as possible.

 

[Adaren]

Diablo 3 on Consoles

 

[Springy]

Not the worst font in the world, but I'm not a fan of some of the fonts they're using in DX:MD:

Fonts in HR were great, not sure why they decided to change them :/

Woah. The future has Sarif, not serifs.

 

[entremet]

As a type geek, this thread is nightmare fuel lol.

The FFV/VI Mobile port fonts are horrific.

 

[LeonSPBR]

Jesus, this hurts my eyes.