/vr/ - Retro Games

The Underground Lab in RE2

God I love FFVII

>>6243915
That room felt tense af

>>6243915
>>6243915
I remember staring in awe to RE2 backgrounds back in the day and looking through the web to find concept art or the high res models. The thing about 2D backgrounds is that you can notice little details more easily than the modern 3D remake, which promotes realism and inmersion over imagination and artistry.

>>6243965
The Midgar playground...is there some kind of filter on that image? I can't tell. It looks like a sketch or something.

>>6243965
Me too. Though I wish the game itself was as great as the aesthetic.

>>6244525
It's upscaled with ESRGAN, which is why it looks wrong and things like the fence on the left side are all fucked up.

>>6244603
Fuck the remake I just want to replay it with everything looking like that.

>>6244480
>which promotes realism and inmersion over imagination and artistry
One of my favorite things about old survival horror that got tossed away with the new remake was clicking on environments and getting the character's thoughts. Same for Silent Hill. It was fun getting in the character's heads.

The whole Forgotten Capitol area

>>6243875

>>6245636
what is this?

>>6244623
You...you do know that's been possible for like 2 years now, right?

>>6245980
Diablo II

>>6244480
That's just because fixed perspective is better than free camera. Free camera has no focus and no artistic direction. Has nothing to do with it being 2d, particularly.

>>6246085
I believe flat images make the brain focus better and so, pick things and details of an image more easily. Anyway, I agree about what you say regarding free camera problems. Lately, I see a lot of people making posts in forums praising these fixed camera games and I'm glad they seem to start appreciating the artistic virtues of those games (which sometimes makes inmersion stronger than full 3D as your imagination make the stages seem bigger and more impactful).

>>6246236
you guys are talking about something which is the reason that real time graphics will definitely never look as good as pre-renders: It's simply the artistic and impact difference between an image, and something that's not an image but you can walk around in, something like a *set*. All the artistic techniques of composition/framing etc., from photography/visual art go into making an image a kind of self contained perfect 'artificed', posed world which wouldn't hold up if a the camera was a single inch to the side. The pre-renders for Riven etc. has some artist putting up to 100 individual lights in place to make the scene look good from that one angle.
I want to illustrate with a general example, see pic rel and I hope you will see how the left feels like Far cry 5 and the right more like a pre-render. Personally being in that location (approximately captured by the left pic) cannot ever feel like the 'image' that is the photo

>>6246320
>>6246236
sorry i'm not meaning to discount this aspect by my post
>I believe flat images make the brain focus better and so, pick things and details of an image more easily.
this is the perceptual counterpart to the artifice of the creation of an image. it exists outside reality so you can absorb into it like that.
There's a funny kind of compromise you see sometimes since, a 3d game is still technically presenting images on a screen if you take your hands off the mouse. They take control off you and move the camera to where it should be... then the focus you mentioned starts to arrive

>>6246320
>>6246326
I completely agree with both. Also, your brain has to complete the lack of information of the surroundings, so you end up amplifying the inmersion of the place in pre-rendered games. There's a lot of elegance and power about using little details like a curtain being waved by the wind or dirty water coming from a foauntain. Just simple animation cycles on a well made 2D image can convey a lot of strong feelings.

Something similar happens with the current busy 3D fighting game stages, which are never going to be as memorable as some of the classic 2D game locations because the brain can't focus and retain a 3D place as good as the flat backgrounds of the past fighting games.

file city from digimon world is maximum comfy.
also dino crisis 2 is great.

>>6246236
>I believe flat images make the brain focus better
>>6246601
>your brain has to complete the lack of information of the surroundings, so you end up amplifying the inmersion of the place in pre-rendered games

We see this sort of thing posted a lot, but do you have any studies to specifically back up this alleged phenomenon?

Saga Frontier has nice feel to some of the areas, shame no one has done a decent rip of the bg files..

>>6246628
>We see this sort of thing posted a lot, but do you have any studies to specifically back up this alleged phenomenon?
Absolutely nothing, lol. It's just a personal perception that it seems to be shared by a lot of people based on what I read in a lot of forums and articles.

>>6246672
That's what I assumed. I've seen similar claims, especially in relation to scanlines, but I've never seen anyone post proof that this actually occurs. It always seems to be a secondhand source, one of those things that you see posted here or there, and just assume it's factual

I cant find any good grabs but saga frontier has tons and tons of beautiful backgrounds. probably one of the prettiest ps1 games imo

>>6247302
I agree, but I thought they were far too saturated in color. Like not just bright, everything looked like glowing primaries. I turned the saturation down a few notches when I would play it and looked amazing to me.

>>6247276
Well In my case, being an artist for a long time, and working in that field has made me a bit sensitive about those kind of things, and a lot of people in the same field or who post in that kind of artistic threads seem to agree too. Anyway, I'm not claiming that it's the truth or scientifically correct, in my case it's more of an instintive thing that it's difficult to put in words, but I'm positive that even you would probably agree if you remember your experiences with pre-rendered games and try to understand what you liked about them in terms of inmersion, atmosphere, etc.

>>6246618
Good taste

>>6246618
this is FFVIII if i remember right?

>>6247349
I don't think there's any sort of brain magic going on here, just that pre-rendered backgrounds were far more realistic than sprite-based 2d and full 3d could offer at the time. Doubly so when sd crts did a great job of blending the 3d character models so that the 2d/3d didn't clash. Most won't admit it, but it was the same "muh grafix" shit that we have with modern gaming, they just give it a pass because it was part of their childhood. I was 10 when RE2 came out, and the visuals blew my mind in the same way that nu-naughtydog moviegames are doing for kids today. There's nothing inherently special about pre-rendered 2d outside of it being a clever way to get more bang for your buck out of a given set of hardware.

>>6247625
it's not nostalgia that makes pre-renders look good it's the fact they're posed like a painting vs just being essentially footage from a gopro

>>6247641
>it's not nostalgia that makes pre-renders look good
Well done pre-rendered 2d still looks good, in the same way that well done spritework looks good, but most of the examples posted here look like shit and don't hold up at all. Kalm and the Tomb of the Unknown King are particularly egregious, with this uncannily high quality lighting over high poly, but minimally detailed terrain with low quality textures. If you think that looks good compared to anything out of RE2/3, it's definitely nostalgia.

>>6247731
>kalm
*Nibelheim. I mixed up the cluster of samey looking houses surrounding a circlular object with the other cluster of samey looking houses surrounding a circular object.

>>6247740
well this one sucks because it has terrible composition, lighting, clashing colors, bad design etc., all the visual art techniques that i was saying are what makes 'pre-renders' good. obviously if someone just makes one without them then it doesn't look good.

>>6247740
This is one of the only failures in FF7. Most pre-renders are iconic and memorable. This one looks awful and is very forgettable.

Does a Pinball table count?

>>6247740
>battlements
Never knew they were there. It's not possible to see them in-game or am I crazy?

>>6246085
free camera is YOUR focus, have some imagination. not that fixed doesn't have merits but it's not one or the other. it's all about the individual game. the blend in silent hill was great

>>6243875
Almost every back drop in Legend of Dragoon looked absolutely amazing.
https://www.google.com/search?q=legend+of+dragoon+town&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj3lI2wxofoAhUQlHIEHUzNCfcQ_AUoAXoECAwQAw&biw=922&bih=598&dpr=1.25

>>6248015

>>6248037

>>6248042

>>6245636
This has to be a prerelease promo image, the palace is never in that position in relation to the rest of Lut Gholein

>>6248048

>>6248048

>>6248069

>>6248073

>>6247405
You're right.

My first point and click adventure game. Took me quite a bit of practice to get into and understand the internal logic of the game. But once you understood it, it was fair and pretty easy to progress. It was a 4 cd game and sadly my copy of the game had a glitch where it froze up when I had to switch between 3rd and 4th disc, so I never did get to finish it. Great game though.

>>6247978
Some genres cannot have a fixed camera. That doesn't make the game worse, it makes the graphics less artistic. There's a reason I can remember so many iconic set pieces from FF7, but from Doom, off the top of my head, I only remember sections that you view head on from an entrance door.

Maybe wrong to use "better" so generally, but it is absolutely more artistic.

>>6246020
No, I really don't keep up to date with this stuff. Has someone redone all the screens? Or is it a real time filter you can run?

I like FF7 backgrounds a lot, but everything looks like doll houses. I mean it kinda fits given the characters look like LEGO or Playmobil, I guess.

>>6247924
>>battlements
Just completely useless crenels, because there's no walkway to use them from.

>>6248849
>There's a reason I can remember so many iconic set pieces from FF7, but from Doom, off the top of my head, I only remember sections that you view head on from an entrance door
The reason is that music plays an important role in forming lasting memories, and square jrpgs tended to have legendary soundtracks and pretty okay visuals that made for a memorable experience.

Meanwhile doom's soundtrack was trash, and the environments were muddy, similar looking messes. Reminder that we didn't get a single memorable soundtrack for any id game until quake 2.
>Maybe wrong to use "better" so generally, but it is absolutely more artistic
If by artistic you mean "looks more like a traditional painting", obviously, but I don't see why you're fetishizing still images over animation.

>>6244447
I'm gonna paint that on the side of my van.

>>6247302
Are the Saga Frontier games good? Also, I'm tired of medieval/past themed games, are these games set in the present like in that pic?

>>6243915
Nothing beats RE2 backgrounds, especially the street ones, those are fucking masterpieces, maybe other games have more detailed pre-renders but RE2 is just excellent, followed maybe by Parasite Eve. Any similar recs are welcome?

>>6248989
faggot

>>6248081
Dragoon was a beautiful game, honestly those screenshots don't do it justice.

>>6244598
It is, the game basically revolves around its aesthetics, hiding weird intriguing stuff all over the world for the player to explore for hours discovering surreal environment after surreal environment.

It's kind of subtle and stupid but I always loved the little hallway before the cfow room where Forest died in RE1. The little vase in the cubby and the bloody hand print smear by the door, then walking into the elaborate crow room all worked together so well. It made you feel hopeless and in over your head, excellent horror aesthetic.

>>6243875
fuck there is so much soul in ff7

>>6250078
Because of the Lifestream, where all souls go after death.

>>6249070
Yes, they are all over the place in Frontier. Their "world" is like Mongo from the 1980 Flash Gordon movie.

>>6249070

Saga Frontier is a such a odd game, some people love it and the twists it places on the JRPG formula and other get bored and stop playing after an hour. You really don't know unless you try it yourself.
It's also a game that had a rushed troubled development, there are honestly a huge amount cut content still in the game files, and not like cut items or dialogue, its like whole cities and worlds were cut at the last minute, but still left in the game files.

>>6250396
Like Mongo? What?

>>6250572
The planet Mongo from the movie, though the word "planet" is used quite loosely. Just think of the worlds from Kingdom Hearts.

>>6250578
The "worlds" are islands, for lack of a better, that exist in a "sea" of what can bes be described as a kinda ether that surrounds a central star. Each has a unique culture or substance to them, however some of them are more akin to towns than anything.

>>6244480
It also allows far more direction in terms of how a certain room or scene is experienced, which for horror is so important. I wonder how many people missed a spook or a scare because they were looking in the wrong direction. Not to mention the room-based nature of the old games is almost entirely responsible for the scare of Nemesis following you through doors -- the understood mechanics of the game were broken.

I also think there's a similar importance in terms of adventure games and JRPGs, where the ability to create a specific atmosphere is absolutely key.

>parasite eve is a survival horror game

>>6250812
Who are you quoting, no one says it’s survival/horror

>>6247302
>>6250471
saga frontier was the closest we got to a open multiverse RPG.

>>6250396
>>6250578
>>6250583
From scifi to modern to magickally bizarre. the emulated screenshots i found don't do it justice though.

>>6251072
forgot pic.

>>6248073
looks like HOMM3.

>>6247909
This looks really cool

>>6245636
this game still looks amazing with the widescreen hack

>>6246320
you can accomplish the same thing with fixed camera angles in a 3d environment
see: devil may cry 1

>>6243915
Remake 2 botched the lab.

Pre rendered is a lost art, why don't they go back to it?

>>6252079
who's they?

>>6252079
Because it sucks seeing someplace cool you can't explore.

>>6252029

RE2make in general did not look great. They were clearly reusing a ton of assets from RE7 and all the atmosphere of the original was gone.

i don't have pics but Sanitrium had some dope shit

>>6252292
The devs could include more pre-rendered rooms as a means of exploration to solve that problem.

>>6252332
I don't think you've played either of those games.

>>6252292
Pre-rendered:
>Wow this place is really cool
>Too bad I can't see more of it
Realtime:
>Can explore everything
>Nothing jumps out as being interesting

>>6254018
he doesnt understand that,
here let me show you how to communixate with his ilk

>pre-rendered
soul based redpilled
>real-time
soulless cringe bluepilled

>>6254018
You should play better games.

>>6251075
what part of saga frontier is this?

>>6254230
not him but it's nothing to do with good or bad games, it's just logic, you have a scene which will look varying levels of striking and intriguing in different framing/poses. Only one, which takes hours of staging or trial and error framing, is the one where it looks best and *most like there's 'more to explore'.* By definition all other ways of showing the scene don't look as good and will reveal the scene as not as rich and deep as it was presented.
I mean look at this beautiful photo and ask whether, if you were there in that scene there's any chance you would find that area spellbinding

>>6254540
End of Blues chapter before he enters Hell. Its the machine that creates the twins.

>>6254573
No, if "nothing jumps out as being interesting", it's definitely just bad games.

>>6252079
They have sometimes. The PSP Yakuza game have prerendered backgrounds.

>>6244746
There is no way the remake could pull this off unfortunately. I can't see how they could pull off something so surreal and otherworldly with a free camera.

>>6243875

>>6252267
Video Game developers presumably

>>6254573
You said it better than me. A lot of it also has to do with resources which you touched on. A dev can invest all their time into one scene as opposed to a full rendered scene which a dev has to spread his time across multiple different angles.

>>6254581
I exaggerated a little bit. A pre-rendered game with equal time and talent is going to have way more striking scenes than a rendered one.

>>6254581
>>6256110
Also I think pre-rendered just does a better job making things seem more interesting. Yeah a lot of games focus the camera on something cool looking when the level starts but it's nowhere near as striking as a pre-rendered one. Maybe it's due to the fact pre-rendered backgrounds are higher detailed or a different style than everything else in the game which makes them stand out more.

Anybody else here super salty that most of the source files for these backgrounds have been lost to the ages forever and you'll never get to traverse them in real VR?

>>6256110
>>6256120
>golly gee, that static background sure is striking!
What a bizarre thing to think when playing a game.
>Yeah a lot of games focus the camera on something cool looking when the level starts but it's nowhere near as striking as a pre-rendered one
Why exactly is that? You keep saying "striking", as if it's this power word that absolves you of creating a real argument for why you think pre-rendered backgrounds universally trump a player controlled camera.
>A pre-rendered game with equal time and talent is going to have way more striking scenes than a rendered one
That's another claim that sounds interesting, but you've got nothing to back it up. How often would you say games are made with "equal time and talent", and how are you quantifying that?

>>6256128
You are not Alone

>>6256147
>What a bizarre thing to think when playing a game.
You never stop and appreciate a game's background/scene/environment? Maybe that's why this is lost on you
>Why exactly is that?
You actually cut out my theory as to why.
>That's another claim that sounds interesting, but you've got nothing to back it up. How often would you say games are made with "equal time and talent", and how are you quantifying that?
If you have 2 days to make one or a few camera angles of a scene that doesn't need to be rendered on the hardware at realtime vs 2 days to make an entire scene that can be seen from any angle one's going to come out looking a lot better than the other simply because you can concentrate all your resources into one area as opposed to spreading them out.

Really it's coming off more like you are aggressively closed minded to what I'm saying. I get this vibe in each one of your responses.

>>6256476
>You never stop and appreciate a game's background/scene/environment?
Far more in 3D rather than pre-rendered isometric games. There's exactly one way to look at a pre-rendered scene, and that's it. It's either well-done (few games pull it off, and those that do so consistently are a tiny minority), or it's not. You're robbed of those immersive, organic moments where you crest a hill and greeted with a gorgeous landscape, or turn and view a level from an unexpected, yet beautiful angle.
>You actually cut out my theory as to why.
Muh feels and muh artistry is not an argument. You prefer 2d, that's perfectly fine. You don't need to doll it up with pretentious artfaggotry. I personally think that pre-rendered backgrounds were an ingenious way of getting around hardware limitations, but you were sacrificing immersion for visual fidelity. Today, you no longer have to choose between the two.
>If you have 2 days to make X then Y
Fortunately, developers are given far more than 2 days to make a game.
>Really it's coming off more like you are aggressively closed minded to what I'm saying
Where do you think we are?

>>6243875
despite generation 6 being the first to have proper 3D with all of its jank there were times where it felt the most real over anything ever after.

>>6256506
>artfaggotry
i think you're meaning me, not him with this. but you're mischaracterising my posts. saying an image has visual 'artistry' not applicable to free camera isn't a value statement it's simply a technical truth. Many of the things that make an image appealing, intriguing, effective, etc - are things that can't apply to an arbitrary view of an unposed scene, composition being the obvious example.
You know when they say rarely of a movie 'every frame is like a painting' do you think they meant the movie looks like paint? no, they're alluding to what extra appeal there obviously is to an intentionally artful image (than a movie frame). Cinematographers do attempt to apply these things but are of course it's infinitely harder to maintain when you move, not to mention move randomly or allow some player to move arbitrarily.
>Where do you think we are?
ah so you want to fight for the sake of it because you think this is muh abrasive site. stop trying to fit in and settle down.
I attach another random example of the power of freezing time and position

>>6248850
It's called the ReMako mod. It replaces all the backgrounds with upscaled ones.

>>6256918
>saying an image has visual 'artistry' not applicable to free camera isn't a value statement it's simply a technical truth
That's a "claim" not a "truth".
<Many of the things that make an image appealing, intriguing, effective, etc - are things that can't apply to an arbitrary view of an unposed scene, composition being the obvious example.
This is exactly the 'feels' and 'artfaggotry' I mentioned. Your claims are specifically ephemeral and feelings based, not grounded in objectivity.
>stop trying to fit in and settle down
Answer this truthfully, have you seen someone else post that, and are thus regurgitating their line, or are you genuinely unique?

>>6256952
i can only infer that you don't know what composition means

>>6256972
>didn't answer a single question
>more pretentious, insubstantial artfaggotry
Okay.

>>6256952
>"artistic choice of camera placement doesn't apply when the camera isn't placed" is a "claim" not a "truth"
jeezus christ can you force an argument any harder.
>but its le fighting site
just punch a wall

>>6256987
>still refusing to answer the questions
Do you have a pathological compulsion to have the last word? Here, I'm feeling supremely generous right now. If you still refuse to answer the initial questions, we'll consider the debate closed and I'll award you the last word. No need to thank me. Use it wisely, hopefully you get an entertaining jab in.

>>6257009
what was the question?

>>6256506
>Fortunately, developers are given far more than 2 days to make a game.
I was going to respond to your shit till I saw this. Avoiding what I'm trying to say completely so you can make low effort one liners. Can't wait for John Stewart to rot in hell for popularizing this shit.
>Where do you think we are?
Not /v/

>>6257009
>Here, I'm feeling supremely generous right now
How can anyone read this shit and take this retard seriously? It's like Hbomberguy is posting.

>>6248957
>doom's soundtrack was trash
Christ almighty get your T levels checked immediately.

>>6247909
I loved the Pro Pinball series.

>>6243875
Nearly every area of chrono cross

>>6259094

>>6247909
Addiction Pinball was very impressive at the time.

>>6252029
They opted for a much more "clean" white reflective aesthetic as opposed to the uncomfortable cyberpunk random pipe feel of the original. Why did that concrete bunker/black mess type lab design somewhat die down?

>>6259094
This is hand drawn, not pre-rendered