Fun Topic:Whats the worst graphics on a game you had played?

[Nemoide]

Blazing Heroes, aka Mystaria, aka Riglord Saga, on Saturn. Low frame rate 3D environments with ugly textures and low-quality, pre-rendered sprites for objects, characters, and many effects. And that’s just too bad, because it’s actually a really good game, a really ugly good game.

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting that this game exists (and that I've owned it for over 15 years). Every time I start playing, I'm so extremely turned off by the graphics that I end up quitting after the first battle.

I really need to give it a serious chance sometime. Maybe on a real CRT TV the awful graphics will be a little less distracting...

I also had a similar experience with Anachronox; I just... stopped playing and didn't start again, fairly early in the game. I've got to pick that one up again too.

[marurun]

Anyone who feels like they want to go after folks in this thread (or any other) will be moderated.

[marurun]

I am deleting offensive comments and I banned you for a day for your last transgression. Nothing happened on the sly. Moderation tends to remain private, but since you decided to air it out... but by all means, contact the site owner. That’s what he’s there for.

And that’s enough on that in this thread.

[RCBH928]

Regarding new games in the 32-bit style, there was Ion Fury and that quake-style FPS recently, which were both well received. Sonic Mania had 32-bit style bonus levels. Maybe there's more.

Yes Ion Fury looks good to me, but it was made to mimic 32-bit generation, something tells me it won't look like that if it was released for PSX. I guess there are atleast more polygons, higher texture, and higher resolution. I doubt even the Dreamcast can look that good, but I don't know.

There’s an HD mod for Anachronox? That was a game with a lot of promise that I just didn’t manage to make much progress in, for whatever reason..

https://www.moddb.com/mods/anachronox-g ... hancements

The online community never ceases to amaze me, who would release HD mod for an obscure game from 20 years ago. How do they even do these, do they recreate the texture for the whole game?

Blazing Heroes, aka Mystaria, aka Riglord Saga, on Saturn. Low frame rate 3D environments with ugly textures and low-quality, pre-rendered sprites for objects, characters, and many effects. And that’s just too bad, because it’s actually a really good game, a really ugly good game.

I looked at videos from youtube, the graphics look on par with 32-bit but something is off setting. Maybe its the art style or perspective, but its not pleasing to look at.

[isiolia]

The online community never ceases to amaze me, who would release HD mod for an obscure game from 20 years ago. How do they even do these, do they recreate the texture for the whole game?

There are probably some cases where creating new textures is the way to go, but in a lot of cases it's more a matter of upscaling them and doing some filtering or other cleaning up. It's actually something we're probably going to see a lot more of as time goes on, as applying machine learning AI techniques to it can get some very good results (article here from a year ago with some examples and links). There's also potential for using it to upscale old TV shows and the like better than before (for example).

[prfsnl_gmr]

Here’s a game I found in the eShop recently:

https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/demon-pit-switch/

Here’s another relatively recent game for the Wii U;

https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/vaccine-wii-u/

An intentional throwback to 1990s gameplay AND textures!

[Sload Soap]

FF7 has ropey Roblox people for characters but they have charm and the backgrounds are amazing. I think the worst offenders in the 32-bit era were ones where you had that morphing effect, dark areas and, my least favourite, terrible draw distances all combine to really scrape against your retinas. For that I'd say Nightmare Creatures is pretty bad off the top of my head.

I played Evergrace on PS2 recently and that looks like a more polished Net Yaroze game. Honestly, a lot of Fromsoft's early PS1/2 stuff looks like crap. Eternal Ring, King's Field, Evergrace, even I think some bits of the first two Armored Cores are fall into the morph/dark/distance Bermuda Triangle. Evergrace unfortunately also plays like crap unlike the others so that really doesn't help.

[marurun]

Probably goes without saying that Virtual Hydlide on Saturn just looks awful. Another one of those early 3D games where a company just had no idea how to make the transition, in part because 3D was so new for games and in part because they probably didn't have the resources to do anything that wasn't crap.

[RCBH928]

Any one thinks bad graphics can be good as in it adds to the scare factor of a horror game? Some horror films aficionados thinks so by watching horror movies on VHS tapes. I am guessing the older format and lower quality adds to the experience and I can see their point. I think the bad graphics and tank controls of RE did just that.

There are probably some cases where creating new textures is the way to go, but in a lot of cases it's more a matter of upscaling them and doing some filtering or other cleaning up. It's actually something we're probably going to see a lot more of as time goes on, as applying machine learning AI techniques to it can get some very good results (article here from a year ago with some examples and links). There's also potential for using it to upscale old TV shows and the like better than before (for example).

So the process is automated? Just add the texture files into a software, take the output files and replace them with the original ones? Those enhancements are amazing, I would think someone redrew these especially that house image.

That's fair, and they are more like 32-bit plus. Same with Shovel Knight and the like for 2D, as in you won't see things like slowdown or flicker and they add some minor things like a few additional colors and higher res. It's more like how we want to remember those generations when devs revisit their aesthetics.

You are right, but 2D enhancements are a lot less subtle than 3D ones, I think you can fool someone into thinking that Shovel Knight is a Genesis game. The same could be said about a 3D game like Dusk, but Dusk intentionally released to appeal to the retro/nostalgic crowd while I think SK is more mainstream.

Probably goes without saying that Virtual Hydlide on Saturn just looks awful. Another one of those early 3D games where a company just had no idea how to make the transition, in part because 3D was so new for games and in part because they probably didn't have the resources to do anything that wasn't crap.

That is a bad one, but I do appreciate the creative efforts of the 90s where they tried to innovate and push the limits than just release replicates. I wonder if people perceived this as "realistic" or bad graphics at the time of release.

[isiolia]

So the process is automated? Just add the texture files into a software, take the output files and replace them with the original ones? Those enhancements are amazing, I would think someone redrew these especially that house image.

There's a large chunk of it that's automated, but as the article points out, it'll usually still take a lot of work in addition to that. Could be though that, over time, tools will produce better and better results off the bat (sort of the idea of machine learning in the first place).