flat!!

bit trip runner was a fun game… it’s no megaman x though

there is cool retro stuff available in modern times, but the truth of the matter is simple:
most classic old-school games were made by professionals with more skill and higher budgets vs modern retro-style games

it's hard for modern stuff to not fall flat since the skills and money aren't there anymore

high quality spritework requires more time and effort than 3d models
the current style is cheaper to produce. even 2d fighting games use 3d models
i wish for a revival of the older styles but its not a profitable choice

i dont like it, seems to me like an excuse to not make good models/sprites
if modern devs want to make a retro game they should try and make it run on very limited hardware while also pushing the graphics as much as they can, not just pixelate this and that and call it a day

>>128351
even though attempts to recreate earlier eras of gaming will invariably fall flat when compared to the greats, I think its the best course of action for video games today until something in the future happens that gets us out of this rut and into the next cycle. That is, assuming that this current era of video games is the "dark age".

>>128365
It is the dark age. And dark ages usually last way longer than the golden ages, so yeah, don't expect for things to get better anytime soon

It was a little disingenious for the /v/irgin who made that image (liek 10 years ago at this point) to pit mid-90s SNES graphics (by Capcom in their prime no less) against zero-budget indie games that were clearly more inspired by the look of late-70s/early-80s 2600/Intellivision-like graphics

I think those pixelated graphics look bad on hd devices. I feel like people should just give up the ghost and render games like this as just clean 2d drawings. I'm pretty sure that's what developers were going for back in the day anyway.

I feel like "games with soul should be pixely" is just a misapprehension caused by misinterpreting the defects/limits of past works as being the standard, kind of like how people discovered old greek statues with the paint peeled off and thought the statues were intentionally made as monochrome.

I don't think it's an effort to recreate anything. Whenever technical limitations are overcomed in art they eventually end up becoming style choices as time goes on. The best example is what happens in film. Was The Lighthouse (2019) trying to recreate 50s movies?

>high quality spritework requires more time and effort than 3d models
Not with AI it doesn't! If an AI-generated hand is downscaled enough it's impossible to tell that it has six fingers. These sprites are absolutely flawless, they look much better than any sprites from any retro game and they took less than three minutes to create.

>>128370
downscaled ai. nuff said

I think it can be great if it's genuine; most of the time, though, "retro" indie games are only retro in a superficial level (graphics) and nothing more.

"Retro video games" is a broad term, anything from the early Atari 2600 stuff to the PS2 3D games era can fall into this category. The OP's image may have a point, but it was made by a sophist.

>What do you think about efforts to recreate earlier eras of gaming?
I think that people who make new games for the old platforms (NES, SNES, C-64, you name it) are doing it right. That's the only legit way to "recreate earlier eras of gaming". It is cool to see how people are incorporating new-skool game design/approach to the old-skool platforms.

An average Unity-based game with a pseudo pixel-art graphics is another thing, though. These I don't care about. These games are not genuine, and a typical example of an cargo cult.

>>128370
pls post shitting Miu and Chika

>>128370
someone ban this guy already :darl:

(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

Comparisons like the OP image always cherry pick the worst art from a handful of kuso games and pretends that it's what the majority of indie games look like. Here, you can cherry pick the opposite too.

People tend to think that pixel art was designed for CRTs and is bad on modern monitors >>128368 but I think it's actually the opposite. Until we get vector monitors (probably never), it's impossible to get sharper graphics with more clarity than pixel art because pixels on modern monitors are square shaped and thus the pixels are displayed almost perfectly. However, making 1:1 pixel art is very difficult and time consuming so not many indie devs are capable of doing it. Doing non-pixel art is a lot more difficult and tends to look cheap and low quality by comparison.

Pixel art should be treated as a style unto itself, not as "retro inspired art". It would be more accurate to say that pixel art is inspired by other pixel art, not by old games.

>>128402
>indie_games.jpg
Never really liked this type of pixel artstyle in new games. I always thought they were too overdesigned, as opposed to older games, which had just the right amount of complexity of sprites and backgrounds

>>128405
Well, it's impossible to make art that pleases everyone. No matter what image you post, there will be someone who says they don't like that kind of art.

>>128405
>>128406
it's because they use too many colors, as opposed to older games who had a palette, and oftentimes the graphics are upscaled to match the game resolutions, which will sometimes clash with non-upscaled pixels

>and oftentimes the graphics are upscaled to match the game resolutions, which will sometimes clash with non-upscaled pixels
I phrased this a bit poorly, but what I'm trying to say is that sometimes the sprites will be, for exemple, 16x16, but the game itself will be something like 1280x720, so the sprites will get upscaled. If the game has non-upscaled pixels in its graphics (this is common in particle effects, for exemple) they will clash with the upscaled sprites.

>>128409
I think most of them do use a palette for the pixel art itself, but additional colors come from dynamic lights or shader effects or transparent graphics (smoke, water) or just a less vibrant color palette.

>>128402
freedom planet looks nice but I have never been fond of the look of the other three games there
cross code in particular has always looked off in an odd way to me...

>>128351
New games on old hardware = retro.
New games that kinda look like old games if you squint real hard = not retro.

>I always thought they were too overdesigned, as opposed to older games, which had just the right amount of complexity of sprites and backgrounds
Older platforms have tight technical limitations. Developers just couldn't show as many colors/sprites on a screen as they'd like to. The minimalist approach wasn't a choice. Everyone ditched that art style as soon as more advanced technologies took the market.

I think most modern games are influenced by the early 90's colorful Amiga/Atari ST art style. Flashback (1992) is a great example of such a game. SNES and GBA games are likely an inspiration as well.