What retro system do you just not understand the appeal of?

[marlowe221]

I dunno, a lot of that darkness on PS2 seems to be from playing on TVs that weren't necessarily set up for it. When I played on my old Bravia set, everything looks dull, but my new Samsung, everything looks great. It also looks excellent on a CRT.

Maybe it's me, but the PS2 does often seem to have a particular palette, which does tend towards muddier, more muted colors. Not 100% of the time, and not really in a way that's inherently negative, there's just kind of a "PS2 look" to a lot of titles on it. /shrug

But is that palette due to some quirk of the hardware or was that what was becoming popular in game design at that point?

[Sarge]

Probably more design decisions. I don't think that there were any major limitations on colors with the PS2.

Also, texturing wasn't nearly as good, which contributes as well. Blurrier textures and blurrier screens (that are being de-interlaced) makes for not-so-pretty visuals.

I do know that stuff looked much more dull on my old LCD, and passable on my CRT and new LCD, but that's purely anecdotal.

[BoneSnapDeez]

But I have to agree with Elkin from earlier in the thread that I just never managed to really enjoy the PS2. There's loads of good games on the thing, but I just have zero passion for it.

Sony and Microsoft hardware have some fantastic games available (huge understatement) but there's something inherently dull, sterile, and corporate about the consoles themselves.

Perhaps it's because those companies lacked a true cart-based "retro" system. Or because their first-party line-ups and "killer apps" never did much for me. Or because the controller for each M/S system lacks ingenuity and is basically a much, much worse SNES controller. And here, at present day, both companies' consoles are gimped PCs with zero appeal.

That said, if I looked at things from a truly objective standpoint I'd probably conclude that the PSX has a larger net number of games I'd enjoy playing vs. the Sega Saturn. Or that the PS2 game library contains the greatest number of enjoyable 6th gen RPGs. But on that same note, a console like the Saturn exudes this type of undefinable nostalgic, unique, and "magical" vibe that a system like the PSX just completely lacks.

[marurun]

The PS2 had lots of memory and caching issues, so colorful and detailed textures were just not the order of business for the PS2. That said, they didn't have to choose lots of brown and gray. So I think it's a combination of those "gritty" color schemes becoming popular and the PS2 simply not being a strong texturing powerhouse.\

[Sarge]

If you want some stuff that's more colorful, check out Level-5's output on the system. Dragon Quest VIII, Dark Cloud 2, and Rogue Galaxy look excellent, and aren't just muddled, brown-looking graphics.

[Exhuminator]

Colorful PS2 games? It doesn't get more vibrant than:

[isiolia]

The PS2 had lots of memory and caching issues, so colorful and detailed textures were just not the order of business for the PS2. That said, they didn't have to choose lots of brown and gray. So I think it's a combination of those "gritty" color schemes becoming popular and the PS2 simply not being a strong texturing powerhouse.\

Yeah. I think it comes down a good deal to that the PS2's GPU simply doesn't have many of the features that its peers do. Instead, the idea seemed to be that developers could implement those in software, which netted mixed results.

[CRTGAMER]

The PS2 has a huge range of games for every genre. I do not see issues of the color palette, all depends what game is played. Sure, the Xbox overall will have a "sharper" imagery, but the PS2 does have quite a few 480p games with some going up to 1080i. Weird that Sony chose the button combo boot route to enable 480p vs a setting directly in the game setup menu.

HDAdvance/HDLoader/FreeMC makes the PS2 a very desirable convenient console for ease of choosing various games. Install the games, put the original discs away and fast load off the internal hard drive. So many controller options and such a huge library. Throw in all the obscure exclusive imports which also can be installed without need of a mod chip.

[marurun]

Well, it's not like the PS2 can't display bright color or anything, but the texture limitations do affect artists and programmers and does often have the practical impact of limiting color use. More detailed or colorful textures take up more space, and that means you have fewer of them to use. Combine that with that "gritty" phase in game development that started about the time the PS2 released which featured low-contrast textures and color choices and you get a recipe for lots of drab colors.

[Sarge]

And, as I mentioned earlier, a side effect of moving to LCD displays, particularly ones that don't de-interlace well, is that those drab, low-contrast games look even more low contrast. I'd very much recommend playing on a good CRT or a TV that scales well for PS2 gaming. (Or use a Framemeister, although I don't have one of those.)

Or emulate. That's totally viable these days if you're not rocking a six-year-old laptop like I am.