/vr/ - Retro Games

>>4003603
>storylines
And nothing of value would be lost.

Graphics certainly matter, but not in the sense that they have to be cutting edge.

>>4003614
>nothing of value would be lost.
Final Fantasy VI
Planescape: Torment
The Secret of Monkey Island
Grim Fandango
Parasite Eve

>>4003603

You're being really reductive.

Of course Graphics and sound matter. But they are pretty fucking low on the list of priorities when it comes to what actually makes the game itself any good.

Graphics don't only matter is more the problem. People tend to associate a good looking game only with the power of the console or GPU the game requires to run but that isn't true. A good art direction and style is all that should really matter.

>>4003625
They matter a whole lot to a lot of people
Why do you think JRPGs on SNES and PSx are praised so highly?
Graphics and sounds my dude

>>4003603
do both of those marios look a little weird or have I never just looked real close at super mario world mario

>>4003630
>Earthbound
>graphics so bad the game got ignored on release, many gamers said it looked like an NES game
>music was stolen/taken from a bunch of people
>people can't stop ranting and raving about what a great SNES RPG it is

If graphics are so damned important, than why does Brood War streams regularly have more viewers than SC2 streams? Why is Super Mario 64 considered inferior to SMW or SMB3? I'll give you a hint, it's not the music.

Graphic horsepower doesn't matter

Art direction does.

>>4003603
they matter, but they're lower on the totem pole than gameplay
they serve as an enhancement to the gamplay, not as its replacement
a game of tetris, pong or snake is more fun than the prettiest walking simulator or visual novel

>>4003648
OK yea but all the games you listed have good artstyle. I would even say that they are
A E S T H E T I C

>>4003648
>Why is Super Mario 64 considered inferior to SMW or SMB3?
Are you actually implying Super Mario 64 looks better than either of those games?

>>4003669
Are you implying that 3D isn't generally considered a step forward from 2D?

>>4003671
Only in a technical sense. Art direction and general aesthetics are a part of graphics as well. I think most people these days would recognize that later 2D console games generally look much better next to early 3D console games.

>>4003671

Not him but that depends on the situation.

Super Mario 64 looks like dogshit in comparison to the best of the Super Nintendo's 2D games.

>>4003630

The kind of people that play JRPGs shouldn't be counted for when it comes to taste.

>>4003635
>>3998026

>>4003630
Jrpgs are praised for story and mechanics.

>>4003603
>he's never played a traditional rogue-like

>>4003676
>>4003676
You're tripping nigga
SM64 looks great

Graphics do matter, but that doesn't mean that I have to be bound by your or anyone else's ideas about what constitutes good graphics when it comes to enjoying games.

It's not a denial of the importance of the visual aspect of gaming, but a rejection of a particularly loud and obnoxious strain of thought that equates quality with technological progress and bigger numbers.

>>4003685
So the one on the left is some kind of emulation error?

>>4003614

>>4003728
By the standards of modern art? Yes.

People will tolerate an ugly game with good gameplay, but not a pretty game with bad gameplay.

>>4003739
Eh left Yoshi and right Mario looks like the real deal. I don't know what these are supposed to be for but it's gotta be bootleg.

>>4003808
/thread

>>4003834
You're right actually, it's a swap.

>>4003717
but the most powerful graphics card of all is YOUR IMAGINATION

Graphics and sound are important, but not as important as gameplay, You could still have a decent game if the gameplay is good despite the shit graphics/sound, the opposite is not possible.

>>4003681
this so much kek, those niggas don't know what fun gameplay is

>>4003621
Cool example of shit games with good production values.

I'm wagering this thread is in response to
>>4002015
>>4002065

Graphics certainly matter, but at the same time, hardware limitations were a huge influence on game design. Many aspects of retro game are non sequitur on more powerful hardware. More over, when people are able to do incredible things with limited hardware, it seems more special than when you do it with more or less unlimited resources.

>>4003603

Being obsessed with visuals and sounds makes you a lesser being, basically like a dumb non-human animal. People with higher cognitive functions focus on abstract points of interest like game mechanisms and plot.

>>4003898
Should have just stopped at game mechanics. Plot is by far the most expendable element of a game.

I think that when most people say "graphics don't matter," they mean "the technology that renders the graphics doesn't matter."

>>4003892
>More over, when people are able to do incredible things with limited hardware, it seems more special than when you do it with more or less unlimited resources.
Simplicity is appreciated in any art form; complexity doesn't automatically make a work good. I'm a musician mainly, so my best comparison would be pop music. Despite it being relatively simple many people still enjoy it, and there is very good pop music being made still. Solo piano music can be considered "less complex" than orchestral music, since it's one instrument compared to many, but it's always about the composition and taste.

>>4003603
>Beautiful paintings
Why do people still paint with real paint and not stick to digital only? There's things you can do in digital that rival oil paints and has many features that painters of old could only dream of.

>>4003603
lot of grate retro game are port from arcade and arcade game have advance gameplay.
but after ps2 arcade are gone

>>4003621

You're kind of making his point.

>>4003875
Every game is shit, amirite?

>>4003603
>Graphics don't matter

no one actually says this.

people criticize emphasis of graphics over gameplay and plot.

>just have white stick figures on a black background hopping around
Atari 2600 is cool too

>>4003603
>and just have white stick figures on a black background hopping around.
That's how the Atari 2600 era looked like and they managed just fine, to be fair.

atmosphere > sound design > graphics

>>4003603
I think you're taking it in the wrong context.

Most say it to defend older games. That phrase is mostly only said in regards to when someone says they won't play an older game as it "looks too old". This isn't much of a thing here, especially /vr/, but it is a common enough reason people say they don't like older games. It isn't meant to say "it's okay if a game looks like shit" but instead mean "just because a game doesn't look very modern it still is worth playing".
>>4003614
You know I think those who discredit story entirely think of them in more modern terms. Is it a problem when the story overshadows gameplay? Yeah, definitely. But I think a good story can really add to a game, it can encourage further playing. A game doesn't need it to be great, but it helps.

>>4004140
Man, I wonder how someone becomes this much of a contrarian.

>>4003875
>Implying Planescape is shit
>>>/v/

>>4003845
Left is the Hudson Team NES Super Mario World remake. Don't know the right one though.

No matter how much you shine up a piece of shit, it's still a piece of shit. Good graphics can't fix a bad game, but bad graphics don't ruin a good game.

>>4003603
Video games are starting to look more like pic related

I hate 3D rendered animation almost as much as I hate claymation.

Older vidya typically doesn't have this sort of problem

>>4003614
this game would suffer

>>4005897
>srpg

That game is already suffering.

>>4003603
I agree.

It also makes me kek when I think about good CRTs but people just keep shitting on me and calling me a CRT elitist just because I want a good picture

>hurr just pick up a random CRT from Goodwill, if it doesn't have colorbleed it's okay anon hurr

>>4005940
>Anon, just use composite, dosen't matter if the console and TV have S-Video or RGB.
I totally get what you mean

>>4003650
This is the only answer that matters and because it's irrefutable it's always ignored in these threads both here and /v/.

>>4005903
Sorry about your ADD, bud.

>>4005978
>You just want it to look like an emulator

>>4006019
Only BVMs make it look like an emulator.

>>4003603
Graphics are key, otherwise you don't see anything.

>>4003603
you are literally describing how good games are made. you have the absolute bare minimum to get gameplay working, and if the game is still fun to play like that, you add graphics to it because it will be fun no matter what.

>>4003950
you dont need the plot, but the plot helps alot to give context to an area.

> You only want gameplay? Fine. Let's remove all music, sound effects, storylines, and just have white stick figures on a black background hopping around.

Done.

http://www.thewayoftheninja.org/nv2.html

>>4004048
look up galloping ghost, I live not ten minutes from there, willing to bet youve got something like it somewhere

I was thinking about making a thread for this.

Once in a while I'll like a game because of it's graphics and music even though I hate the gameplay. Pic related.

>>4004040
because digital painting is... fuck this is hard to explain... less intuitive, and for me less rewarding. there is no good response to painting digitally, shit always trails behind where you want it, and then if you don't have a good monitor in the 1000-5000$ range, the colors are always going to be off by just enough to bother you.

then we have multiple centuries of teaching methods for traditional, yet we have digital that is ever changing, and if started 10 years ago, everything you learned would be useless today outside of the fundamental skills, that are all teachable through traditional means.

You then have another factor of cost, digital painting, if you are trying to closely emulate real painting, will cost you 5-6000$ minimum once all the programs are bought, meanwhile traditionally

12$ for a 24x26 drawing board
15$ for 500 sheets of 18x24 news print
then 10$ on pencils/charcoal pencils

You sharpen them right, and it will teach you everything you need to know to have a foundation for painting, along with painting techniques.

at least that's good for basic skills. I would argue learning color digitally is FAR cheaper and more effective than traditional though, especially just to learn basics and not emulate painting.

>>4004250
I look at it this way, there is a bare minimum that I expect graphically from a game no matter how good the gameplay is if its a new game, its one reason why nidhogg was a game I could never justify paying for.

But i'm able to go into games like rogue shooter and not care about graphics at all... sadly gameplay also isn't to great in that game, but graphics in it were not a deal breaker.

you really only have 3 jobs with graphics.
1) hit that bare minimum
2) dont overblow the graphics budget at the expense of the gameplay
3) when the game is 3d, don't actively make people sick because of your choice of field of view or effects.

>>4004398
they were also a novelty and nearly all games were 10 minutes long if not less if they did not infinitely loop.

gameplay on atari was at best a proof of concept.

>>4004436
is this from a game or just some pixel art?

>>4005940
really all I want out of a crt is it to work with light guns, and after that, I want it to have as little lag as possible.

>>4006105
Breath of Fire IV, I think

>>4006105
From Breath of Fire IV, as >>4006114 said. Great game.

Graphics matter a great deal. But higher resolution or more realistic don't equate to better.

>>4003603
Good aesthetics have little to do with the number of colors available or even the resolution (within reason).

>>4003653
>russian tetris
>"all the pieces are falling into place comrade"

>>4006019
Do you imply I should play it like you used to play it? You do know people had amazing CRTs back in the day too, way before emulators, it's just that you probably didn't have a chance to play on them as it seems

>>4003851
This is true.

I got heavily invested in many a Roguelike and ZZT/Megazeux modules the same way as a full blown 90s "Triple A" title.
Its fun sometimes to game something that can act as a vector for you to inject your own imagination, in a way it makes it feel more personal.

>>4006107
sao you don't care if it looks like crap compared to even mediocre CRTs?

>>4003650
This, mixed in with my standard response of "graphics are the icing on the game cake"

>>4003650
That's a very tech illerate thing to say

>>4006003
specially for /v/

>>4003603
In one sense, graphics don't matter. 2600 games are fun despite the visuals being hilariously blocky. Old MSX games are fun, even with the appalling scrolling. PS1 games are fun, even with the low resolution and texture warping and awful point accuracy.
Games on each still have to have some level of aesthetic quality to them, but they don't need to look as good as a modern game to still be enjoyable or playable.
Hell, even a 3D PS1 game can be attractive on its own merit.

Of course, there's plenty of old games that look like ass for the hardware and suffer for it, graphics do matter in that sense.

>>4006104
Disagreed, there are "best we could do" titles in many respects but the system has its share of fun games. Activision was quite prolific in this regard. I also put a lot of value not in atari's home ports (none really stand out to me as great games) but rather their original titles for the system.

This thread reminds me of an interview which gunpei yokoi and another person did back in the nineties (I don't remember who the other person was) where yokoi talked about the changes he was seeing in development at the time. He saw games getting less Innovative in their gameplay and instead relying more on stories and presentation values to set themselves apart. He also commented about how when the Gameboy was devised, he knew it would be okay to do a black and white screen based on playing a famicom on a black-and-white TV. His take was that if you drew a circle on a blackboard and then drew a larger circle directly underneath it, and then pointed to it and told someone that it was a snowman, then they would agree and their minds would fill out the missing elements (the nose, arms, excetera) based on their existing idea of a snowman in their mind. Thus you didn't need high-detailed graphics rendering, you just needed to suggest an idea to the player, and their imaginations would do the rest.

>>4006003

It's irrefutable because it's an opinion. When people say "art direction > graphical horsepower", 90% of the time they mean that "stylized graphics > realistic graphics".

>>4003603
this
>>4003620
You took it too seriously. 'Graphics don't matter' means that when a game sacrifices attention to the other aspects like gameplay story level design etc in favor of looking pretty, or worse attempting to look like real life, the end result is a pale shadow of what it could have been. All of the best games are great because of the way they feel and play, with some of them also looking really good.

>>4003603
Gameplay is king. It's the most important part of the game

Graphics, and Sound add to the experience.

Games are fundamentally about the experience. A game with mediocre gameplay may be elevated by good graphics and sound. A good game may be marred by shitty graphics and sound.

>>4003603
You underestimate me