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[DryvBy]

I'm such an old geezer. Remember when cel shading was all the rage? Ultra realistic graphics? Remember 3-D!? Anyway, I was thinking this weekend that I wish we'd get some more retro games with the pixel detail quality of some older DOS games, specifically the game I kept thinking about was the Legend of Kyrandia series by Westwood. It's one of my favorite adventure games of all time and everything about the art design, animations and music really stuck with me over the years.

Just look at this:

If you want more of this DOS goodness, here's the playthrough. Listen to these tunes!



I could probably name a dozen more old games that had a neat look to them too. This is just easily one of my favorites, along with some of the SVGA King's Quest games. Heck, gimme some of that Nox looking stuff any day too.

 

[Badlucktroll]

 

[Flabagast]

I mainly want the Fortnite-style trash artstyle to go away

 

[TintoConCasera]

Whatever Snatcher was doing on it's Sega CD version, I want more of that:

 

[Plague Doctor]

After most modern games going for the vomit diarrhea shit soup of random rainbow colors with no rhyme or reason, I could enjoy browns and greys again. Even when it was dull, it wasn't an open assault to the senses like the multicolored heat stroke games are going for now with color palletes.

You mother fuckers need to stop wishing with a monkey's paw.

 

[bender]

I didn't care for the game play loop very much but have you tried The Case of the Golden Idol?

 

[jshackles]

Remember how everything was cel-shaded for a while?

Make more visually interesting games like Hi-Fi Rush, and less boring ultrarealistic crap.

 

[March Climber]

I'd want to see someone use high fidelity 3d models and then try to make them look as close to these below character models as possible, to see what that result would be:

 

[Project 2501]

Okami

 

[Caffeine]

Pixel art all the pixel art

 

[intbal]

Metaballs

 

[cormack12]

 

[nkarafo]

 

[semiconscious]

 

[existensmaximum]

I'm such an old geezer. Remember when cel shading was all the rage? Ultra realistic graphics? Remember 3-D!? Anyway, I was thinking this weekend that I wish we'd get some more retro games with the pixel detail quality of some older DOS games, specifically the game I kept thinking about was the Legend of Kyrandia series by Westwood. It's one of my favorite adventure games of all time and everything about the art design, animations and music really stuck with me over the years.

Just look at this:

If you want more of this DOS goodness, here's the playthrough. Listen to these tunes!



I could probably name a dozen more old games that had a neat look to them too. This is just easily one of my favorites, along with some of the SVGA King's Quest games. Heck, gimme some of that Nox looking stuff any day too.

Oh yeah, all three Kyrandia games look sublime! This!

 

[March Climber]

Hopefully one of these indie devs doing 90s PS1 retro style games will one day try and recreate what Megaman Legends series looked like:

To me it was the best looking PS1 franchise of all time, and for me that's saying a lot because I felt that the system had a library full of ugly 3d games.

 

[nemiroff]

Interesting topic. But even so, lack of variety in art styles is hardly on the list of 2024 important issues in my opinion. I can't think of anything "missing" really.

 

[March Climber]

Interesting topic. But even so, lack of variety in art styles is hardly on the list of 2024 important issues in my opinion.

Agreed, and it took me a while to think of two good examples. Even what the OP is asking for I feel like I saw it recently, just not in the AAA space.

 

[amigastar]

Whatever Snatcher was doing on it's Sega CD version, I want more of that:

The City is so blatantly copied from Bladerunner. But i never played the game so i don't have nostalgic feelings for it.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Hopefully one of these indie devs doing 90s PS1 retro style games will one day try and recreate what Megaman Legends series looked like:

Looks great, man I should play those games seeing how loved they seem to be around here.

For me another one would be the Goemon games on the N64. Love how "chunky" their models look. You could count their polygons just by looking at them and I love that.

The City is so blatantly copied from Bladerunner. But i never played the game so i don't have nostalgic feelings for it.

The city... and everything else lol. Game's basically Bladerunner's setting but written by Kojima.

It's a pretty cool game, I really recommend it.

 

[Damigos]

Fear Effect style
Static images like Res Evil or FF PS1 era but with moving parts.
Fear Effect felt so impressive at the time

 

[DAHGAMING]

Dark and gritty. To much happy colours up in my face in alot of shooters now days, even COD and CS have got brighter over the yrs. Looking forward to STALKER 2 for that darker tone.

 

[March Climber]

Looks great, man I should play those games seeing how loved they seem to be around here.

I, like I'm sure many others, truly thought that Megaman Legends was the future of the Megaman brand. That's how uniquely fresh and great of a series it was. They had mastered making a video game feel like a playable action-adventure anime series and they had actually found a fun gameplay loop (Metroid-Prime style locking on, strafe dodging, and shooting) that worked.

Megaman Volnutt remains the most expressive and fun Megaman to me with a good personality.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Whatever Snatcher was doing on it's Sega CD version, I want more of that:

You might want to add this upcoming indie game to your Steam wishlist.

 

[RoboFu]

The City is so blatantly copied from Bladerunner. But i never played the game so i don't have nostalgic feelings for it.

the basic premise is blade runner... I mean its well known.. No one has ever tried to hide it.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Auto Modelista is a piece of shit but the aesthetics are 10/10

Out Of This World is a very bizarre game but I love the art style so much. Reminds me of the music video for Money for Nothing.

Super Punch Out looks great and animates so well. The unique perspective and giant pixels you just don’t get anymore.

 

[RAIDEN1]

SVC Chaos, especially with the recent re-release, tells you how good the presentation was circa 2003

 

[killatopak]

Sprite based high quality rpg mostly.

Something on the lines of Atelier Iris 2/3, Mana Khemia 1/2 and Ar tonelico 1/2.

You ever see Squall’s limit breaks and GF summons? That only it’s sprite. Most of the animations and attacks on modern rpgs that do feature sprite based arts are so tame and grounded. I want galaxies and planets blowing up like knights of the round and supernova.

Other than that, I want more Kamitani works from Vanillaware. Special mention to Viewtiful Joe. I miss that shit.

 

[TintoConCasera]

I, like I'm sure many others, truly thought that Megaman Legends was the future of the Megaman brand. That's how uniquely fresh and great of a series it was. They had mastered making a video game feel like a playable action-adventure anime series and they had actually found a fun gameplay loop (Metroid-Prime style locking on, strafe dodging, and shooting) that worked.

Megaman Volnutt remains the most expressive and fun Megaman to me with a good personality.

Game looks great and you just sold it to me with the Prime's gameplay comparison.

I'll make sure to play them soon! Probably on autumn, since I have my retro-consoles on the loft and that room's an oven during summer.

You might want to add this upcoming indie game to your Steam wishlist.

Having just watched Legend of Galatic Heroes (and having loved it) this game might be right up my alley. Thanks fren, I'll make sure to try out the demo one of those days, love that GB inspired look.

 

[Bring Back Scalebound]

Don't know if it counts, but I really miss Yoshitaka Amano being the main art designer (character designs, enemy designs, so on) in Final Fantasy and other games.

I adore his art style.

And even though his character designs sometimes tend to follow a certain formula, I always love how gorgeous they are, specially how rich their colors tend to be.

 

[March Climber]

Auto Modelista is a piece of shit but the aesthetics are 10/10

If only Need for Speed Unbound had leaned further into it's art style...

The half step should have been a full step.

 

[Fbh]

Mid 90's to early 00's Anime
Stuff like Xenogears, Breath of Fire IV, Valkyrie Profile, Legend of Dragoon, etc

But to be more specific, I still think Breath of Fire IV is one of the best looking games ever.
The artstyle has that late 90s look Im talking about, and blends excellent spritework with 3D environments in a matching style that does a great job blending both styles together (I'd argue a better job than pre rendered backgrounds with basic 3D models like many other Ps1 Rpg's)

 

[BossLackey]

The pinnacle of pixel art. I would kill to sit down with one of the artists that worked on Metal Slug.

 

[simpatico]

Actual good sprites. SotN, Capcom arcade stuff.

 

[amigastar]

the basic premise is blade runner... I mean its well known.. No one has ever tried to hide it.

Well, to me it's not known, i missed this game back in the days besides that i was always a Nintendo guy in the 90 so games on Sega console didn't interest me that much

 

[Humdinger]

I'd like game developers to experiment with new art styles. I'm not so much interested in a return to the old as finding something new.

I think there is a lot of room for artistic experimentation in the game world, and there is a lot of talent to be tapped. Unfortunately, building games is usually a large-team effort, and the genuine artist is an individualist. The artist has to deal with committees driven by commercial interests and other priorities. So I'm not too optimistic. Still, there is potential for good art in the videogame space. You see it now and then.

 

[Topher]

Oblivion' style was so good

 

[Wildebeest]

Trippy fractal real time world generation.

 

[jufonuk]

Metal slug is a great answer that’s and cel shaded games.

Boomer shooters are back so quake style games are now the rage other than. That SNK and falcon were the masters of pixel art and animation.

 

[Dacvak]

 

[amigastar]

Oblivion' style was so good

Skyblivion next year, hell yes.
I'm waiting for it.

 

[Pimpollo818]

 

[Puscifer]

That super chunky cel-shaded look of stuff like JSRF, Auto Modellista and XIII because it aged INCREDIBLY. Playing Jet Grind Radio at 4K on PC was beautiful, only downside it only runs 30 but that's one artistic direction I'm okay with.

 

[BlackTron]

Muramasa is one of the most gorgeous games I've ever played, despite that tbh it gets pretty repetitive. There isn't really anything like it except other Vanillaware games, but I think this is still the best looking.

 

[Holammer]

Not a specific style, but I'd love to see developers try to work with a restricted palette. Emulate the distinct look and feel of Capcom arcade games.

There are a few games doing similar work. Satryn Deluxe restricts itself to the Speccy palette and does some color clashing. Resolution and stuff on screen would be impossible on a real Spectrum, it's fun homage.



Skald similarly restricts itself to the C64's palette and there are more colours per tile, the resolution is much higher.

 

[Killer8]

Would like to see pre-rendered nature backgrounds like those seen in Onimusha 2 make a return in 4K. I want to be able to walk up to my TV and count every individual leaf on a tree.

I suppose an argument could be made that game visuals are so good now that we've eliminated the need for pre-rendering - see the latest Riven remake which turns pre-rendering and FMV into amazing real time Unreal Engine 5 gameplay.

But I disagree with that for a few reasons. Pre-rendering allows the artist to have full control over a scene. They can get the angle, the lighting and the asset placement all just right and create truly dramatic visuals. It often allows developers to push visuals much higher than anything the hardware can do in real-time. They can also save a ton of time and money by not having to render anything that's not visible on screen. It's probably a reason why Capcom and Square were able to churn out so many games in the late 90s.

The drawback of it is that developers are basically cornered into creating these games with tank style controls, which I think people would be very resistant to going back to. But the sales numbers needn't be very high if an indie dev was to run with the style...

 

[Closer]

While I agree with a bunch of posts... I really want everything to look like Yoshi's Island or Katamari Damacy. Overly bright, unapologetic happy, LSD. That's basically why I loved Hi-Fi Rush.

 

[John Bilbo]

I think there still could be something interesting to be done with the rotoscoping technology they used in Prince of Persia.

 

[EruditeHobo]

Mid 90's to early 00's Anime
Stuff like Xenogears, Breath of Fire IV, Valkyrie Profile, Legend of Dragoon, etc

Came here to say Xenogears... unique blend of 3D & 2D using sprite/pixelart. Excellent look.

But to be more specific, I still think Breath of Fire IV is one of the best looking games ever.

This is fucking incredible... I never played BoF series at all, might have to try this one out though. Wow.

 

[EruditeHobo]

But I disagree with that for a few reasons. Pre-rendering allows the artist to have full control over a scene. They can get the angle, the lighting and the asset placement all just right and create truly dramatic visuals.

Yes, absolutely.

YEEEESSSSSSSS.