/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.10724156]

did 2D pixel graphics peak with the GBA?

[Anonymous No.10724164]

At least half of those screenshots are inferior SNES ports. Pixel art peaked with the SNES.

[Anonymous No.10724179]

I would say that 2D graphics peaked with the DS.
But in terms of systems we can actually discuss here, GBA is the latest and greatest.

[Anonymous No.10724182]

Donkey Kong Country might be the ugliest game I've ever seen that people seem to insist looks/looked good. The fact that anyone defends that games visual style is baffling to me.

[Anonymous No.10724194]

>>10724164
The SNES was low resolution, had a washed-out colour palette, and was too bottlenecked for many animation effects or larger sprites. It wasn't even a contender. If pixel art peaked, it was on the PlayStation, Saturn, and Neo Geo.

[Anonymous No.10724270]

>>10724194
I don't like the look of most 2D Playstation and Saturn games. They'd often resize and rotate sprites and looked messy. Too much shading, too many details.

[Anonymous No.10724280]

>>10724270
>Too much shading, too many details.
How is this a bad thing?

[Anonymous No.10724296]

>>10724194
Exactly. PSX, Saturn and Neo Geo games just look better and move better, they are on a differente league.

[Anonymous No.10724303]

>>10724156
No they peaked with DS, picrel and it's sequels were far more advanced than what the GBA could handle

[Anonymous No.10724304]

Wario Land 4 and the Sonic Advance games are the peak of 2D pixel art. They make tasteful use of sprite scaling and rotation.

[Anonymous No.10724306]

>>10724156
Symphony of the night on PS1 is probably even more advanced than the DS games now I think of it.

[Anonymous No.10724317]

>>10724280
Too much detail makes the art look less confident. It often ironically makes it appear more cheap. If you can convey an idea with 2 colors, no need to do 16.

[Anonymous No.10724371]

>>10724270
>Too much shading, too many details.
SNES fans are always raving fanatics, totally detached from reality.

[Anonymous No.10724409]

It peaked with Saturn/PSX.

[Anonymous No.10724434]

It peaked with the genesis.

[Anonymous No.10724453]

>>10724156
You can identify the exact moment it peaked. Capcom was so ahead of everyone else that they have never been topped. The future fucking sucks. Not only did graphics peak in the 90s, but nothing made since even comes close.

[Anonymous No.10724463]

>>10724156
post bigger version

[Anonymous No.10724484]

>>10724371
You cannot interact with that environment though. It might as well be a pre-rendered CGI graphic like in Rise of the Robots.

[Anonymous No.10724486]

>>10724484
This thread is about pixel art, not interacting with background environments.

[Anonymous No.10724490]

>>10724182
you're playing it on a digital display without composite video/shaders?

[Anonymous No.10724491]

>>10724156
No. They peaked with PS1 and Saturn, but even SNES has better 2D capabilities than GBA.

[Anonymous No.10724497]

>>10724486
It's a hand-drawn illustration recreated 1:1 with pixels. It might as well be a JPEG, which is my point.

[Anonymous No.10724502]

>>10724194
>SNES was low resolution
Higher than GBA. SNES was 256×224 while GBA was 240x160.
>had a washed-out colour palette
TVs came with saturation controls, you know? If you don't like the colors, just tweak it. You can do that with SNES, wheres with GBA you were stuck with the shitty LCD panel that ALWAYS looked washed-out and wasn't even backlit in the base model.
>and was too bottlenecked for many animation effects or larger sprites
Those ones are true, I'll give you that. But 5th gen solved those problems.

[Anonymous No.10724523]

>>10724497
>It might as well be a JPEG
But it's not a JPEG, it's a beautiful pixel art background.
>>10724502
Did you stop reading halfway through >>10724194? Sure, the SNES is better than the GBA, whatever. Neither are even close to the peak of pixel art.
>TVs came with saturation controls, you know?
So does the GBA if you play it on that GameCube thing, or an emulator. That point is meaningless when we're judging systems by their own merit. The GBA had a poor screen with terrible saturation, and the SNES had a poor colour DAC with terrible saturation and lacking vividness. They both are commonly washed-out and lifeless.

[Anonymous No.10724531]

>>10724317
Disagree. Pixel art is impressionist regardless of complexity, effective execution of an idea can be done with high and low amounts of detail. Moreover, you need confidence to do detailed pixel art. Simple pixel art is charming regardless of its cheapness.

[Anonymous No.10724536]

>>10724523
SNES looks perfectly fine, what are you talking about? GBA games look the way they do because they intentionally chose very bright palettes.

[Anonymous No.10724539]

>>10724434
The Mega Drive is up there.

[Anonymous No.10724547]

>>10724531
I'd say a good example for my argument would be Metal Slug. It's considered to be one of the most impressive pixel art games. But it all blends together. It's impressive like a commercial Renaissance painting, where it's mostly about the sheer tedium and effort of making it. Compare it with this, which I think looks way better than what we can see in the PSX era (like Mega Man X5 graphics)

[Anonymous No.10724563]

>>10724547
Metal Slug is all about the animation. It looks good in a screenshot, but until you see it in action you don't understand why it is so praised.
X5 is a very low effort game. While I would much rather play 7, comparing to 8 is more fair visually. Also 7 kind of looks weird, I don't consider it a great looking game. It is okay.

[Anonymous No.10724568]

>>10724536
SNES uses a very cheap colour DAC which has trouble doing many bright shades next to each other. To work around this, many SNES games either used very dark palettes, or very muted pastel palettes. This is why, next to other 16-bit era hardwares, SNES games always look a little muddy and lifeless, and why, when they did attempt a lot of different bright colours, the overall palette is always "off" and seems to be tinted in an odd way.
>>10724547
Perfect example right here.

[Anonymous No.10724586]

>>10724547
What do you think "commercial Renaissance paintings" are? This was before the industrial revolution, so "commercial" makes no sense. That aside, Renaissance paintings are not just about the amount of details there are but how they cohere into a single piece.

I think what you're trying to say is that you don't like detailed pixel art because you think the coherence is a bad thing. You prefer simple art with clearly defined shapes, and all the power to you. I just find that style to be overly simplistic and uninteresting as a result, clean as it may look. Here's a classic example of a pixel art piece that uses basic shapes alongside the details, perhaps you'd like this more?

[Anonymous No.10724587]

>>10724568
>compared to other 16-bit hardware
Really now? Everything you just said describes every western developed game for the Genesis.
I own both these consoles, man. SNES looks bold if the game being displayed is. Super Ghouls and Ghosts and FF5 pop off the screen with high contrast colors.

[Anonymous No.10724638]

>>10724587
>Games look bold when games look bold
When you grant your own premise, anything is possible.

[Anonymous No.10724683]

>>10724586
>You prefer simple art with clearly defined shapes, and all the power to you. I just find that style to be overly simplistic and uninteresting as a result, clean as it may look. Here's a classic example of a pixel art piece that uses basic shapes alongside the details, perhaps you'd like this more?
Yes, you're right. Although I liked it more when I only saw the thumbnail and didn't see the dithering. I believe simple art works better within the resolution limitations of retro consoles. Simple shapes and colors makes it easier to tell what you're looking at. They're almost like symbols.

When it comes to 3D games of today, I want more details and better lighting. I would not want to play a game that looks like Virtua Fighter. But if the screen resolution was 320x240 I might prefer VF over ultra-realism.

[Anonymous No.10724693]

>>10724638
Yes, the colors chosen to create the game determine what it looks like. Not some made up nonsense about video output.

[Anonymous No.10724725]

>>10724693
Too bad the SNES did not allow developers to actually choose pleasing colours due to the cheap hardware design. But I suppose hardware details are just "made up nonsense" now.

[Anonymous No.10724876]

>>10724179
I don't doubt it but a lot of DS games that I've tried seem to rely on 3d/polygons, there might be exceptions tho.

[Anonymous No.10724891]

Why does SNES make /vr/ seethe so much? The thread started with GBA, yet 90% of it is about SNES.

[Anonymous No.10724895]

>>10724683
>Simple shapes and colors makes it easier to tell what you're looking at. They're almost like symbols.
That's just it, all art contains these shapes and all you need to do is look for them. That's ultimately what I believe you don't like doing, you dislike the act of interpreting anything more complex than the obvious which has very little to do with the characteristics of pixel art and has more to do with your personal taste. If you really have trouble with dithering and whatnot I suggest trying to view these images on a CRT from a proper viewing distance if you can.

Ironically, displaying complex ideas with low resolution sprites is a large part of what makes pixel art interesting, so to my understanding you simply don't care for pixel art unless it's exceedingly basic. All the power to you, just don't be surprised when people have difficulty seeing things your way.

[Anonymous No.10724898]

>>10724891
If you stopped trying to insist the SNES was "the peak of pixel art" (laughable and deluded assertion) then we wouldn't be talking about it.

[Anonymous No.10724950]

>>10724895
>All the power to you, just don't be surprised when people have difficulty seeing things your way.
Actually, according to the market, simple characters generate money, complex ones don't. There is a reason why Jigglypuff, Hello Kitty, Kirby, Pac-Man, Peanuts, Sponge Bob do really well. Can you name five retro game characters with a complex sprite-work that gained any kind of popularity? Because most fell into obscurity. A child could draw Kirby on their notebook from memory, but they will not be able to draw Terry Bogard. If they try, it will look like a random generic dude wearing red cap and a vest. The power to memorability lies in simplicity.

[Anonymous No.10724959]

>>10724164
I counted 15, which makes 13.88%

[Anonymous No.10724983]

>>10724950
To add to this: Simplicity means less cognitive load. If you have simple backgrounds, for example, your brain has to decipher less visual noise that does not contribute to the gameplay loop. The more simple the graphics, the easier it *appears* to pick up and thus has wider appeal.

It's the difference between IDM and pop music. IDM might be technically more impressive with a hundred fills and effects, but it's fairly niche and mostly appreciated by other music producers. Same with complex pixel art.

[Anonymous No.10724989]

Last 2D-dedicated console at least. Very soulful.

[Anonymous No.10725000]

>>10724950
That has everything to do with design and nothing to do with technological limitations. Unless you think drawing a simple character on an infinite resolution piece of paper is impossible.

[Anonymous No.10725012]

Pixel art peaked recently with games like Noita, Devil Engine, and Dead Cells.

[Anonymous No.10725021]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7OVZ2R-A64
Hey SNES schizo, call me when it has a game with pixel art this pretty

[Anonymous No.10725041]

>>10725000
A strong design trumps technical effort. When someone doesn't have confidence in their design or main core idea, sometimes they overcomplicate by making things technically more impressive than it needs to be by adding all sorts of bells and whistles as a distraction.

Which goes back to my main point:
"Too much detail makes the art look less confident."

But outside of other artists, the general population does not particularly care about technical pixel art tricks. With simple graphics at least you can say it was a deliberate artistic choice. Complex shading also contributes to the game lacking "soul". Think "Flashback" on the SNES vs Kirby's Adventure on the NES. Which one holds up in 2024 better?

Would Flappy Bird have been successful with SNK-tier sprite art? I have my doubts.

[Anonymous No.10725047]

>>10725012
Also Zeroranger

[Anonymous No.10725054]

>>10724164
also a good chunk of them are low-poly models on low-texture backgrounds like in Banjo and Kazooie

[Anonymous No.10725056]

>>10725021
ring ring

[Anonymous No.10725060]

>>10725056
that doesn't look nearly as good

[Anonymous No.10725087]

>>10725056
LMAO it's not even in the same league

[Anonymous No.10725097]

>>10724179
many of the ds games had a mix of 2d and 3d, and the 3d parts looked fucking horrible in my opinion. DS has some of the ugliest graphics in gaming.

[Anonymous No.10725103]

>>10725012
>Noita

you're kidding, right? that game looks like puke. it's the type of low effort "pixel art" most indie devs go for

[Anonymous No.10725105]

>>10725056
Being an SNES fan is embarrassing.

[Anonymous No.10725110]

>>10724453
Arc System Works says hi.

[Anonymous No.10725153]

>>10725060
>>10725087
Okay guys, I fixed the screenshot for you to be on par with the one in the video.

[Anonymous No.10725175]

>>10725105
It must feel extra embarrassing to be a disingenuous NeoGeo fan. Your screenshot is a "money shot" used to sell the arcade cabinets. They make certain parts of these games look impressive in a screenshot but the minute you get halfway through these games it's repeated tiles all over.

Pic related bottom left corner.

[Anonymous No.10725190]

>>10725175
Are you implying only that part of Metal Slug looks good? Holy fuck Nintendo really rots people's brains

[Anonymous No.10725197]

>>10724950
Oh darn, obscurity? You mean the very thing this board is dedicated to? I guess we'll have to alter our individual tastes to suit the majority. Yeah, right.

[Anonymous No.10725228]

>>10725175
>n-n-nothing else in Metal Slug looks that good! It's all repeated tiles!!
SNES fans stop being deluded challenge (impossible)

[Anonymous No.10725230]

>>10725190
Does this pic look good to you?

https://metalslug.fandom.com/wiki/All_About_Love

[Anonymous No.10725232]

>>10724156
No they peaked in the late 2000s and early 2010s on online pixel art communities. There are indie games today that make retro games look like shit, but most of the best pixel art ever made was never actually in a game. It was on pixeljoint and pixelation (RIP).

[Anonymous No.10725242]

>>10725230
Metal Slug 3's last level was a mistake. The whole game has issues but that final stage is just shit.

[Anonymous No.10725247]

>>10725232
If it isn't in a game, and more importantly, a good game, it is irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.10725252]

>>10725230
Nice cherry pick. How many awesome looking screenshots did you have to skip to find that one?

[Anonymous No.10725265]

>>10725252
This shitty ass sepia tone boss doesn't even animate.

[Anonymous No.10725270]

>>10725252
You're right, here's another one from a different level. Look at all that detail!

[Anonymous No.10725272]

>>10724950
>Can you name five retro game characters with a complex sprite-work that gained any kind of popularity?
Kefka Palazzo
King Fossil
Samus
Gyarados
The Metal Slug

[Anonymous No.10725282]

>>10725230
>>10725265
I would like to remind this board that you are arguing that Metal Slug is not animated enough and has too many repeating tiles, and that pic related is actually the "peak of pixel art".
Why are SNES fans always like this? So eager to shit on everybody, with zero ground to stand on. It's pathetic.

[Anonymous No.10725285]

>>10725282
Metal Slug 3's last level looks trash and is rushed and padded out to shit. Brown hallways leading to sepia tone nonanimated bosses.

[Anonymous No.10725289]

>>10725270
>beautiful sky background
>extremely smooth animated characters
>not a single repeated tile in the shack
>even the bridge has details in the support structure and flooring
Look at all that detail, indeed. That looks awesome.

[Anonymous No.10725293]

>>10724983
That's a fun way of admitting you consider complexity as above you.

[Anonymous No.10725297]

>>10725285
>nonanimated bosses
And I suppose they would be animated on the SNES? What Metal Slug REALLY needed was the awesome power of a 2.68 mhz CPU behind it.

[Anonymous No.10725305]

>>10725282
Almost every single obstacle in that SNES game has a unique animation associated with it, yet it's the fraction of the ROM size as Metal Slug 3. It's pure soul and looks better than most 2D PSX games.

>>10725293
Complexity for the sake of complexity is not rewarded in either popularity nor efficiency.

[Anonymous No.10725316]

>>10725297
I'm actually in agreement with OP but don't let that stop you from seething about SNES every moment of every day.

[Anonymous No.10725323]

>>10724156
Even when I was a kid I felt GBA games looked cheap compared to console 2D games.

[Anonymous No.10725326]

>>10725305
>looks better than most 2D PSX games
You bitter and unsatisfied SNES fans would really do well to avoid grandiose declarations like this, they never seem to work out for you guys.

[Anonymous No.10725347]

>>10725247
Spoken like a true pleb.

[Anonymous No.10725353]

>>10724156
Saturn had nicer pixel art.

[Anonymous No.10725360]

>>10724156
ps1/saturn, gba was a debased form

[Anonymous No.10725361]

>>10725326
Interesting how it's always fighting games. Darkstalkers has six different fonts in the UI for no reason and it's a mess of details.

[Anonymous No.10725363]

>>10725347
Making stunning pixel art and not using it to make a game with it is such a colossal waste it honestly kind of pisses me off.

[Anonymous No.10725371]

>>10724898
They keep pushing SNES because they can’t reasonably claim N64 games had good pixel art

[Anonymous No.10725375]

>>10725103
Nah its hella intricate with how each pixel has physics applied to it. Shooting a fire spell at a puddle of water and watching it evaporate and turn into gas is beautiful. "Low effort"? Not at all

[Anonymous No.10725376]

>>10725363
Spoken like the king of plebs.

[Anonymous No.10725382]

>>10725375
That's not pixel art, that's called particle effects.

[Anonymous No.10725386]

>>10725305
Real schizo hours

[Anonymous No.10725387]

>>10724179
This. DS was the last console where games used pixel art sprites for hardware reasons rather than as a retro knockback artstyle choice.

[Anonymous No.10725390]

>>10725110
This is an example of decline if I'm being honest. This artwork reminds me of the super trendy and sleek black and white metal/plastic designs that have taken over every school, office, and fast food restaurant. It was an improvement at the time but soulless in retrospect.

[Anonymous No.10725393]

>>10725153
Holy shit how does this game look so REAL?! I feel like I'm lost in another world.

[Anonymous No.10725404]

>>10725361
Different fonts help the eyes adjust for different types of information. If you want to see your ammo count then it's actually kind of distracting that it's the same font as the timer.

[Anonymous No.10725406]

>>10725361
Also my word this is so unbelievably beautiful for a SNES game. PSX Endless Duel was also great to look at.

Sigh I wish the SNES game had more mobile suits and scenarios to play out. But the small roster does make it more compelling to try out the different suits. Learning everyone's moveset isn't so daunting when there's only ~9 characters.

[Anonymous No.10725410]

>>10725406
>PSX Endless Duel
Sorry I mean Battle Assault; ED was SNES.

[Anonymous No.10725414]

>>10725393
I know, right?! That's why I was so disappointed when I played the PSX sequel, which was supposed to be even more immersive. Look at this thing.

[Anonymous No.10725421]

>>10724950
>Jigglypuff, Hello Kitty, Kirby, Pac-Man, Peanuts, Sponge Bob do really wel
Because they appeal to more than just boys?

[Anonymous No.10725427]

>>10725421
So does Inuyasha but that's not half as popular or remembered because it's not as simple and cute.

[Anonymous No.10725428]

>>10725427
Still an extremely popular character.

[Anonymous No.10725429]

A minimalist style can create very striking visuals. But then you have lunatics like in this thread who thinks Dark Stalkers isn't one of the greatest looking games ever made because it isn't on the SNES. He probably doesn't even appreciate 8bit visuals despite his argument leading there.

[Anonymous No.10725431]

>>10724950
If a call to popularity and financial success is your reasoning, then you're just saying that lowest common denominator shit is the best thing ever. Which essentially makes you a nothing person, someone with such a lack of identity and taste that you can only enjoy something because other people have seen it and moderately enjoyed it.

The top 40 playlist on Spotify is where its at right anon?

[Anonymous No.10725450]

>>10724156
No, they Sank, how many turds were ugly bleached out hyper saturated eye damaging palettes but also had the sprites just being prerender 3D models with David Perry style levels or isometric bullshit?

GBA is the system thats the most outdated visually, most games, yes even the good ones, are just not appealing to look at, and BEFORE you come off and scream about, COLOR CORRECTION, the color correction on gba emulators and even Retroshit, all it does is to make the games look burned dark and murky as bad as it was in the original gba screen because nintendo once again bottlenecked their system to save money.

[Anonymous No.10725451]

>>10725414
it’s a weird samefag routine but ok

[Anonymous No.10725452]

>>10724156
>>10725450
How many games actually allowed you to adjust both the brightness and the gamma/contrast of the games?

[Anonymous No.10725471]

>>10725429
I love 8-bit visuals, particularly when the sprites are neon colored or look like this. But not when they look like Terminator 2 or Predator. Look at how minimalist the objects are: almost every object is made out of a square or rectangle, including the hamburger.

>>10725431
>Which essentially makes you a nothing person, someone with such a lack of identity and taste that you can only enjoy something because other people have seen it and moderately enjoyed it.
This makes no logical sense. You're assuming I like something because it's popular, as opposed to most people recognizing something being good.

Music is played in stores and malls, on the radio, in TV advertisements, movies, and everywhere you go. You cannot avoid it. If you're an extrovert and go out a lot, you're more likely to like Top 40 music simply due to repeated exposure. Video games on the other hand have friction built into them in the sense that you have to make a purchase to be able to enjoy them and are not forced onto you.

[Anonymous No.10725503]

>>10725471
You mistake marketing budget for quality.

[Anonymous No.10725504]

>>10725503
Yes, companies have no interest in burning money by marketing garbage.

[Anonymous No.10725513]

>>10725504
>companies have no interest in burning money by marketing garbage

[Anonymous No.10725521]

>>10725513
We're talking retro games where you had to make a serious investment to release something in stores and console manufacturers had a minimum requirement for cartridges and discs. Not to mention cost of advertising in magazines versus through an app today.

[Anonymous No.10725530]

>>10725521
So you don't remember the marketing blitz behind actual garbage like Rise of the Robots or Brutal: Paws of Fury?

[Anonymous No.10725531]

>>10725521
Same principle: companies that only put out garbage won't stay quiet out of shame, they will find a gimmick and advertise their garbage to trick people into buying it.

[Anonymous No.10725547]

>>10725530
I remember the one for Rise of the Robots, but not Paws of Fury. I liked both as a kid for a weekend rental. Anyway, in cases of like that, it's usually a case of sunk cost fallacy. Publishers would have no idea if a game would be garbage, until it's close to done. If they knew, they either cancelled it knowing the marketing will incur more loss or they wanted devs to finish it and hopefully break even. In case of licenses, for movie tie-ins and such, they had contracts to fulfill and wanted to keep good relations instead of saying "game sucks, sorry, we decided to cancel it because the pixel art didn't have enough shading".

>>10725531
Didn't the publisher pay some college kids to develop this game and they only have like a few weeks because of the incredibly low budget? I may be misremembering it somewhat.

[Anonymous No.10725562]

>>10725361
This is better, but
>weird lavender sky
>light off-green foreground and rubble
These are not stylistic choices, but rather, concessions to work around the poor SNES colour DAC. The two fighting Gundam character elements are very bright and vibrant, which throws the colour DAC into overdrive and causes surrounding colours to be misrepresented. On a real console, this would cause the lavender sky and ocean are darkened to a more realistic shade of deep blue, and the green foreground details are darkened to a brownish grey. These sorts of colour choices are rampant in SNES games for precisely this reason, it is one of the lesser discussed serious flaws with the SNES hardware, and a huge driver behind why so many games have such unappealing colour choices on the system.
>>10725429
>>10725471
Minimalist 8-bit styles can certainly be beautiful, but that sickly NES colour palette really throws off any art that was done for the system. The Master System really shows what an 8-bit console with a decent palette is capable for.

[Anonymous No.10725569]

>>10725562
>poor SNES colour DAC
New made up talking point against the SNES just dropped.

[Anonymous No.10725584]

>>10725569
>technical observations that I don't like are fake
Cope more, 2.68 mhz.

[Anonymous No.10725589]

>>10725584
The SNES CPU is indeed very slow but it is also irrelevant to the thread

[Anonymous No.10725591]

>>10725584
I for one can't wait for the next "technical observation" to drop. Surely that one will finally convince people to stop liking the SNES.

[Anonymous No.10725606]

>>10724303
Too bad the background graphics got A LOT WORSE in the first two DS games, what were they thinking, on top it all, level design grow worse and more crammed due to teh screen rooms being the same as the DS resolution (256x192), instead of retaining the SotN settings of (256x256)

[Anonymous No.10725607]

>>10725606
*256x224
also oh no you lost 14% of the pixels the west has fallen

[Anonymous No.10725849]

>>10725305
For pixel art, complexity is not supposed to be efficient and popularity is not important.

[Anonymous No.10725854]

>>10725110
gay anime slop

[Anonymous No.10725864]

>>10725547
As you've tacitly observed, advertising sells games and not their content.

[Anonymous No.10726184]

>>10725021
thank you for posting this game. I'd never even heard of it and I'm constantly looking for games with a top down zelda/secret of mana look and feel.

[Anonymous No.10726189]

>>10725547
>sunk cost fallacy

Man you're dumb.

[Anonymous No.10726237]

>>10725305
>Almost every single obstacle in that SNES game has a unique animation associated with it
And Metal Slug isn't? Even food pickups transform into a spoiled version of them if left alone, they went that far with the animation you dishonest cunt

[Anonymous No.10726395]

>>10724156
Outside of arcades? Yes, the GBA might be the peak of pixel art- it was the last system that truly required it, and it was a culmination of years of pixel art mastery in many ways.
Arcades are obviously #1, so the only discussion for 2nd place is between GBA and Saturn. In the GBA's defense, the Saturn had such good pixel art mostly because it was an arcade port machine to begin with.

In my opinion:
1. Arcades
2. GBA
3. Saturn
4. Neo Geo Pocket Color
5. PS1

This thread is extremely retarded btw, SNEStards deserve the rope.

[Anonymous No.10726396]

>>10724156
Not at all, many GBA games used lazy prerendered visuals.

[Anonymous No.10726628]

3d was a mistake

[Anonymous No.10726731]

>>10725849
Maybe in 2024 if you’re a hobbyist. Otherwise it’s cope.

[Anonymous No.10727593]

>>10725021
The colors on that game look really washed out.

[Anonymous No.10727603]

>>10726395
>Genesis not there
Opinion discarded.

[Anonymous No.10727606]

I did kind of wonder why so many SNES games made heavy use of pastels

[Anonymous No.10727667]

>>10727606
Because they could. Devs had access to do many colours that they didn't have to make their games look garish

[Anonymous No.10727749]

>>10727667
>Because they could
It was a workaround to make colours look correct on the shitty SNES colour DAC. The SNES gave you access to so many colours precisely because Nintendo hoped it would make up for the shitty quality of the actual colours themselves. This is why games released in the same time period on other systems like the Mega Drive, Saturn, PlayStation, or Neo Geo, were often far more vivid and saturated than SNES games ever were.

[Anonymous No.10727791]

>>10725427
Most of what you've listed is still relevant to some degree through either new media or pop culture relevancy. Inuyasha barely gets anything new to it. Best you get is the author put out a new work, you read it and get the itch to read/watch Inuyasha from it, or they do another anniversary for the author and do a 1 off OVA.

[Anonymous No.10727805]

>>10727749
>were often far more vivid and saturated
I prefer the word garish. Also the Mega Drive had a notoriously bad video DAC

[Anonymous No.10727818]

>>10727749
Let's look at this example: >>10725562 like the other anon said, it looks garrish. SNES backgrounds use pastel and muted colors to separate the sprite from the background. It's a way of showing atmosphere. Things in the background are less saturated.

[Anonymous No.10727829]

>>10726731
Simple styles are for hobbyists, don't get it twisted

[Anonymous No.10727841]

>>10724303
Yes. Too bad DS went hard into shitty looking 3D and gimmicky touch screen use instead of making more gorgeous 2D games. I milked GBA for every semi-decent game worth playing that came out on it and hoped DS would be a kind of GBA+ or GBA Ultra. But there's very few 2D games on DS in general, let along good ones.

[Anonymous No.10727853]

>>10727829
Wrong. Complex pixel art is either hyperfixation and obsession over details or a pointless flex on...? Pic related is a good example. It was a commercial failure. Took 10 years to make. Meanwhile Pizza Tower has no shading and looks like it was made in MS Paint.

[Anonymous No.10727854]

>>10724156
no, but I find most gba games that aren't shovelware tend to be significantly more polished looking than their snes counterpart, even with the downside of blown out gamma.

[Anonymous No.10727858]

>>10727854
this is excluding direct ports though.

[Anonymous No.10727879]

>>10727853
>popular = good
Undertale was made by a hobbyist, what's your point?

[Anonymous No.10727886]

>>10727879
>Hobbyist
>Included in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, one of the biggest video games of all time, getting respect from the creator of Kirby
You become a professional the minute you make reliable money with something and contracts are involved.

[Anonymous No.10727924]

>>10727886
You mean, like what pixel artists do?

[Anonymous No.10727985]

>>10727924
>Undertale was made by a hobbyist
>For pixel art, complexity is not supposed to be efficient and popularity is not important.
Changing goal posts. If you're a professional, you want to be efficient and popular. If those are not a concern, you're a hobbyist. Make up your mind anon.

[Anonymous No.10727994]

I hate Big N stans

[Anonymous No.10727996]

>>10727994
>stans
you can stop typing this in every thread any time bow. eminem is on the down low by the way.

[Anonymous No.10728006]

>>10727996
Ok, Big N.

[Anonymous No.10728013]

>>10727994
>I need 60 frames of animation for a knife swipe and my games must use all 256 million colors all at once because I have no imagination and my mind is unable to fill in the blanks
I'd say "many such cases", but only 15 people bought a NEOGEO.

[Anonymous No.10728040]

>>10728013
>Appeal to popularity
Always the same with you guys. It doesn't count because it wasn't endlessly shilled.
>Make big bold claim
>Claim doesn't stand up against scrutiny
>Move the goalposts
>Redefine the conversation and disqualify the competition based on dubious self-imposed criteria
>"Look mum I won the internet!"
Every single time.

[Anonymous No.10728063]

>>10728040
>I'm going to open up a pizza shop. Pepperoni pizza? That's only plebs. Instead I will make pizza dough with Fiji water and then top it with tuna, caviar, pineapples, capers, and olives imported from Italy. The stuffing will have Alfredo sauce with cheese aged for 10 years personally by me and I will bake it in a state-of-the-art oven and then charge $300 per pie.
>Why is no one buying? How come no one cares about my effort?

[Anonymous No.10728084]

>>10728063
>I moved the goalposts and now I'm only interested in discussing the moved goalposts, forget about OP, anon, we don't go back to that convo because I was losing! these are the rules now, as redefined unilaterally by me:

[Anonymous No.10728092]

>>10728063
>food analogy

[Anonymous No.10728098]

>>10728084
You cannot factually and objectively (aka based in reality) prove to me that over-complicated pixel art is appreciated by gamers enough to pay for it. Just because you like emulating them (where you're not paying a single cent), that does not mean anything.

[Anonymous No.10728108]

>>10728098
>over-complicated pixel art is appreciated by gamers enough to pay for it
Go to Japan and visit some arcades and shops. Start counting how many MS machines are out there. Also, you keep trying really really hard to move the goalposts. I wonder why.

[Anonymous No.10728145]

>>10728098
Saturn, PS1, paying a quarter in the arcades?

[Anonymous No.10728158]

>>10728108
>Go to this obscure country that represents 1% of the world population as that will prove me right
>Also only 0.01% of that 1% population are arcade owners that are buying the games
Great counter-argument.

[Anonymous No.10728172]

>10728158

[Anonymous No.10728178]

>>10728172
Not enough details, shading, and colors in the GIF. Must be the Google Chrome's DAC going haywire. Take this JPEG, free of charge.

[Anonymous No.10728217]

>>10726628

[Anonymous No.10728289]

>>10727853
but pizza tower also took like, 10 years too?

[Anonymous No.10728320]

>>10728289
According to Wikipedia it took only five years and the programmer only joined two years into it.

[Anonymous No.10728402]

>>10727985
I'm not the one bringing up career merit when we're discussing artistic merit. There are plenty of inefficient and unpopular professionals, there are plenty of efficient and popular hobbyists. Your non sequiturs indicate you care more about winning a conversation rather than engaging with it. Congratulations, you win!

[Anonymous No.10728409]

>>10728063
>art only matters when people buy it

[Anonymous No.10728509]

>>10728402
My initial argument was that I don't like the look of most 2D PS and Saturn games. Subjectively, I don't like it. Objectively, most people also don't like it. If they did, the marketplace would reflect that by making more of it.

Objectively, after a certain point, you reach diminishing returns with details and that point happened after the SNES. Once pixel art gets too detailed, it loses its charm and appeal and goes into "line art in a shitty resolution" territory or "scanned in painting cleaned up in Deluxe Paint".

I've come to this conclusion precisely because of the conversation, which I engaged with.

>>10728409
This is a good art piece. So is the banana ductaped on the wall. People talk about it, it's interesting, and everyone remembers it. Once again simplicity and confidence wins.

[Anonymous No.10728557]

>>10728509
Taste is never objective especially when discussing art. You've mistaken your preference for pop art as an objective indication of refined taste despite an unwillingness to approach anything that doesn't have simplistic mass appeal.

[Anonymous No.10728573]

>>10728557
>You've mistaken your preference for pop art as an objective indication of refined taste despite an unwillingness to approach anything that doesn't have simplistic mass appeal.
You posted a low resolution pixel art copycat of a Thomas Kinkade painting. Talk about kitsch.

Japanese traditional art is often minimalist. Same goes for ukiyo-e. Do a Google Image search. Most are not shaded. You've mistaken video games as personal artistic expression, as opposed to assets created for a commercial product meant to move units.

[Anonymous No.10728587]

>>10728573
Yeah, I was making fun of you. You can't appreciate works on their own merit and can only extrapolate their value from marketability.

Pixel art is not minimalist or maximalist, it's just a distinct format like clay sculpture or woodblock printing. Speaking of printing...

[Anonymous No.10728640]

>>10728587
>Yeah, I was making fun of you.
Press X to doubt. I can appreciate works on their own merit, but that merit has nothing to do with how much shading is used or the amount of detail. I don't think pixel art is suddenly better because it has more colors or detail.

What you seem to be unable to comprehend is that by the PSX/Saturn era sprite art had to be more detailed in order to be competitive and not look dated. Otherwise gaming magazines would say "This looks like a NES title, how can you charge $30 for this when there is Crash Bandicoot".

But you're arguing like you discovered these retro games yesterday.

[Anonymous No.10728662]

>>10728640
Yea thanks we've already established you prefer simple art and can only understand artistic merit in a marketability framework, nice reading comprehension. Believe it or not, detailed pixel art existed before 5th gen.

[Anonymous No.10728671]

>>10724156
No. Not even close.

[Anonymous No.10728678]

>>10724156
I think I agree with the anons here saying Saturn/PS1, particularly due to Symphony of the Night. The GBA had some fantastic graphics but was also very limited by its smaller resolution and limited color palette which was compounded by the original unlit screen which forced developers to use weird pastel colors as seen in the SNES to GBA ports. It still had some very nice graphics for its time, but I think Saturn and PS1 (and by extension SNES and Genesis) looked a bit nicer. The people posting Neo Geo also got it right, those games had very detailed sprites and super smooth animation.

[Anonymous No.10728695]

>>10728662
>can only understand artistic merit in a marketability framework
Consumers have a limited amount of budget for games, ergo the industry was competitive. Art isn't competitive, unless you enter the marketability framework or insecure. With each generation of consoles the resolution of the system became higher, requiring more and more effort to remain competitive on the market. The point is the devs were forced to make 2D games more detailed. Not many publishers would invest money into marketing outdated looking games. Looking at modern retro-inspired games, most look like NES/SNES games. I have a gut feeling you will say it's because indie devs don't have the skill to do more.

Anyway, you must be a different anon from the one that cried about me not "engaging" in conversation, as you strawman three times in a row.

[Anonymous No.10728765]

>>10728695
I like art when it's done well or at least has meaning behind its composition, marketability has very little to do with my appreciation for artwork. Did you ever consider that as a possibility or were you too busy bloviating about marketability to notice your conversational disengagement?

[Anonymous No.10728789]

>>10728765
You made claims about what kind of art I like, despite I never mentioned pop art once. Minimalism isn’t easy or simple either. It’s significantly more difficult to draw an elephant at 8x8 pixel resolution than 256x256. 8x8 is like creating a puzzle, which to me is more interesting than drawing pixel art like a digital painting and turning off anti-aliasing. Because by that criteria wojak memes are also pixel art.

OP asked if pixel art peaked at GBA with a collage of commercially released games. I was steering the conversation on topic, not towards your preference in art in general. I was talking about products released 25+ years ago.

[Anonymous No.10728829]

pixel art peaked with capcom arcade fighting games probably but gba is up there (yes I think gba games look better than snes)

[Anonymous No.10728834]

>>10728789
Of course, by focusing on marketability you show how little you care about popularity. My point is that pixel art never peaked, there are countless artists still making good pixel art in a variety of styles.

What the thread topic will ultimately boil down to is the fact hand-drawn art was the standard until prerendered 3d sprites became a popular style right around the time 2D consoles were less marketable. That doesn't mean good 2D pixel art stopped being made, it just means it stopped being popular which is the only thing you seem to care about. Thanks to artists that carried the torch in spite of the market we still get to enjoy well made pixel art, not that you care. You want to claim good art died when you were playing it so you can feel special about yourself, but at least that much is accurate. You really are special.

[Anonymous No.10728857]

>>10724194
>>washed-out
>>compared to the gba
a-are you retarded?

[Anonymous No.10729381]

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[Anonymous No.10729426]

nah neogeo is the best. neo turf masters, metal slug, kof, garou motw.

[Anonymous No.10729441]

>>10725110
Anon, I like both games but the difference between both is night and day.

[Anonymous No.10729471]

>>10724156
No, it peaked with arcades console tard.

[Anonymous No.10729557]

>>10728834
>Gee whiz, this anon is crying passive-aggressively and feels like they're not being heard in the conversation, let's engage with them earnestly
>You are so special aren't you sweetie~
I didn't even claim good art died at SNES. Here's your last (you) from me.

>Thanks to artists that carried the torch in spite of the market we still get to enjoy well made pixel art, not that you care.
I don't care and no one really does. I could generate an image like that with AI in about 2 seconds, meanwhile you take 2 weeks on it.

[Anonymous No.10730057]

>>10729557
I find it hilarious you couldn't be bothered to generate your own image despite claiming how easy it is, I don't care who you are or what you think if you can't follow a basic conversation.

[Anonymous No.10730453]

>>10729557
Man that's so obviously AI generated. It's jagged in so many places because there are random groupings of pixels that create squares that dont need to be there, there is banding and the clusters are amorphous and unintentional. It lacks the precision that a human would provide. Its also using 74 colours when it only needs 8. 10 at most.

The people that think that AI can do what a human artist can do always have no eye. You only think this because you lack the taste and the knowledge to see the problems. Your entire argument is based on the fact that you don't know any better.

Why are involved in a conversation about quality when you wouldn't know quality if it slapped you in the face?

>inb4 cope or whatever because a blind man doesn't know what he can't see

[Anonymous No.10730459]

>>10724156
2D pixel graphics as opposed to what? 2D vector graphics? Your PC displays 2D pixel graphics you know.

[Anonymous No.10730462]

>>10729426
Beaten by Atari Jaguar and Sega Saturn ngl nigga.

[Anonymous No.10730470]

>>10730453
Different anon here, but how can you know that it is mostly, if not entirely AI generated? 74 colors? Yeah, because humans can't use that many colors at once in a single draft. /s Oh, and blind? TCH! I see in full color, but that doesn't mean that one is automatically an artist either way. AI images are not going to kill off regular artists, but they indeed need to be at least regulated in some way.

[Anonymous No.10730482]

>>10730470
I know its AI generated because I am a pixel artist. It would take too long to explain in detail, but google cure's pixel art tutorial on pixel joint. It will explain a concept known as clusters. I can tell from the clusters (which I know sounds like "this is shooped I can tell from the pixels" but that's really what's going on).

And a defining feature of pixel art is restricted palette. That's why I mentioned the colour count. It is also defined by precision and intent behind every pixel placement. Otherwise its just oekaki or digital art. That image isn't even pixel art by definition.

You misunderstood the meaning of the blind man metaphor btw. I'm saying that someone was going to tell me its just cope and that person would be unable to see what I'm talking about anyway. Hence, a blind man doesn't know what he can't see.

[Anonymous No.10730538]

>>10730057
>>10730453
>>10730482
>I know its AI generated because I am a pixel artist.
Hahah. Welcome to reality: People look at images on social media for about two seconds or less, hit like, and move on. No one is analyzing clusters, no one is counting the number of colors, nor looking at banding or dithering. Who has time for that? Other pixel artists.

Every pixel art that was recently posted in this thread is just as soulless as that AI generated one. It has no meaning to the viewer and it doesn't evoke any emotions: Because the viewer is not given a reason to care. They do care about Flappy Bird though, because it's inside a fun little game. And Pac-Man. A flat yellow circle with a wedge creates more positive emotions than this supposed perfect pixel art.

It's cool if you're level 99 in the World of Warcraft of pixel art. I understand it's important to you because you invested time into it, learned the guides and know all the lore, and it became a part of your personality. But unless your pixel art is used in a video game, it has no more value than you spending your time collecting bottle caps or leveling up in actual World of Warcraft.

You can make the art for yourself to pass time, if it's your passion, but then it shouldn't bother you at all that developers will use AI to get the pixel art 90% there and clean up the rest. Your overproduced contributions have no value in the marketability framework, as confirmed by history where pixel art peaked (SNES) and then went into decline. By overproducing you price yourself out of the market and being able to be part of gaming history. Smart artists realized that is more important than getting props on social media.

[Anonymous No.10730539]

>>10724156
Outside of arcades the answer is saturn

[Anonymous No.10730540]

>>10725316
>SNES
Uhhhhh… anon we need to chat

[Anonymous No.10730545]

>>10724164
The GBA versions with their compressed music and desaturated sprites, have SOUL. The snes originals feel soulless by being able to tell apart the instruments, making them feel empty. The color pallets on the GBA versions invoke the warmth of childhood while the SNES versions are just grating and oversaturated.

[Anonymous No.10730572]

>>10730538
I knew it. A blind man doesn't know what he can't see.

[Anonymous No.10730576]

>>10730545
Said no one.

[Anonymous No.10730578]

>>10730538
>>10730572
Also you're a retard if you think that artists care about markets. You really don't understand art. But that's okay, you're a grey man who wears a grey suit and lives in a grey world. Not everyone is going to understand art, but you should at least be able to understand that for some people there are things worth thinking about beyond marketability and profit margins on a spreadsheet.

[Anonymous No.10730613]

>>10730572
>>10730578
>Not everyone is going to understand art
Society simply doesn't "get" your art and the deep meaning behind your random drawings of dragons and stock image landscapes. Why not recreate Google Earth in Minecraft, while at it? Or maybe you could build a giant tree house out of LEGO.

>Also you're a retard if you think that artists care about markets.
They sure seem upset about AI taking jobs while supposedly not caring about markets. They also get upset over AI because it means that they will receive less eyes on their work in the attention economy. That's why they're so quick to point out mistakes in technical details they see in AI: Insecurity. Comparing their work and by extension themselves to others.

[Anonymous No.10730641]

>muh simplicity
>muh popular appeal
>minimalism GOOD
>complexity BAD
Silly thread.

[Anonymous No.10730648]

>>10730538
>>10729557
AI containment board, when?

[Anonymous No.10730651]

>>10730641
Forgot
>MUH MARKETABILITY

[Anonymous No.10730659]

>>10730613
Stop thinking that you represent society.

You don't.

[Anonymous No.10730661]

>>10730651
Also forgot "Cope"

[Anonymous No.10730664]

>>10730641
Look, we will simply redefine the rules so Nintendo wins every time and there's just nothing you can do, sweaty.

[Anonymous No.10730669]

Nope. Did with PS1

[Anonymous No.10730676]

>>10730659
I'm reflecting objective reality, which a lot of you seem to conveniently ignore. That's why a lot of consoles/developers/publishers went out of business. You can fantasize and imagine people want X and Y and they care about Z, but the numbers won't lie.

[Anonymous No.10730680]

>>10730613
No anon, people don't like AI because it represents a significant drop in quality. We all know that you don't care about and can't see quality, but lots of people do care about and can see quality.

We point out the problems because you obviously can't see them and you say "it's just as good". You start an argument and whenever someone tells you why you're wrong, you see the very fact that someone is presenting a counter argument as proof that you're right. It's so fucking retarded. AI won't replace artists, I'm not saying this as cope, because I make pixel art for myself I haven't done it professionally for over a decade. I'm saying this because it's actually true.

Anyway, we're trying to talk about high quality art here. We get that you have very low standards, message recieved. Please go back to /g/ and shit up a stable diffusion thread.

[Anonymous No.10730684]

>>10730676
You are projecting yourself onto the world and acting as though you are reflecting reality.

[Anonymous No.10730693]

>>10730661
How is your response even lower effort than my post?

I'm really seeing why you're so in love with AI slop, you have the "chicken tendies" equivalent of an eye and taste for art. Can't be have any complexity or be something you're not used to, can't be something which doesn't have guaranteed mass market appeal and which isn't really easy to digest.
I don't exactly consider myself some sort of refined connoisseur of art either, but it's bizarre how your tastes are both so aggressively unsophisticated and bland, yet you're so fucking combative about it.
I'll use a food analogy because I don't think you're worth more.

McDonald's isn't exactly worth a Michelin Star, they don't have the best hamburgers by any metric, but I think they're ok enough, if I want a really good hamburger I'll look elsewhere, or I'll fry my own. You, meanwhile, come off like the kind of guy who would devote his life to explaining why the Big Mac is the best burger in the world actually, and why everyone else is wrong.

[Anonymous No.10730696]

>>10730676
The numbers "don't lie" about Fast & Furious movies either, but if you unironically regard them as anything higher than 5/10 I would suggest you have the mind of 7 year old boy.

[Anonymous No.10730704]

>>10725376
>the king of plebs
so a regular king?

[Anonymous No.10730710]

>>10730704
He means a king who himself is a pleb, perhaps the most pleb man in the land.

[Anonymous No.10730735]

>>10730680
It's strange that you'd find the desire to point out why something is technically wrong, when it should be fairly evident. When people buy a button-up shirt, as an example, do you think the average person inspects the quality of the threading? Or perhaps "good enough" is good enough for most? Do people in a club criticize the producer for using default presets and loops? Or do they just dance to it? Why would pixel art be any different. Oh yeah, because you're in it.

>>10730693
>McDonald's isn't exactly worth a Michelin Star, they don't have the best hamburgers by any metric, but I think they're ok enough, if I want a really good hamburger I'll look elsewhere, or I'll fry my own. You, meanwhile, come off like the kind of guy who would devote his life to explaining why the Big Mac is the best burger in the world actually, and why everyone else is wrong.
This was a rational reply. Most people buy McDonald's for the reason that they either like the taste, enjoy the familiarity, or it serves the functional purpose for their budget: Not be hungry. People who want the five star restaurant experience can make a reservation months ahead, pay hundreds of dollars, and enjoy it. Both are valid, because they serve different target audiences (and come at a different price point).

Are video games meant to be five star restaurant experiences? Because as far as I'm aware, they usually cost $50 or less. In 1992 that would have gotten you gorgeous 16-bit sprite art. By 1998, it was 3D experiences. I don't actually care for AI art, as I find it boring. It serves no functional purpose, I associate it with a low (or non-existent) budget and by association will believe whatever project it's used in is also low effort and not worth my time.

[Anonymous No.10730760]

>>10725371
they are cowards

[Anonymous No.10730764]

>>10730735
I point it out because you cant see it, and other people care about it just as much as me, not just artists. But besides all that, any artist worth their salt doesn't make art just so the layman can say "eh, looks good enough".

Let me ask you a question, when you play a game, do you think "wow they really cut corners here and saved money, this is so marketable and cost effective?".

Do you not want art to be the highest standard it can be? I just don't get where you're coming from. It's like fast food vs gourmet food. Sure fast food is fine sometimes, even enjoyable. But you will never remember it or enjoy it like you would a high class meal.

Or how about furniture, lots of people buy mass produced cnc manufactured furniture because it serves a purpose. But anyone with money and taste goes for hand made furniture. What makes you think art is any different, what is the point of serviceable bottom of the barrel art in the first place anyway?

[Anonymous No.10730778]

>>10730735
>>10730764
And honestly, isn't the fact that you're the only person here arguing that AI is "good enough" proof that you're actually in the minority? Most people do not see things the way you do. Art isn't just a consumable or a tool to get things done. It exists purely for its own sake. Most people want their art and entertainment to be as good as it can be.

[Anonymous No.10730794]

>>10730545
trying too hard

[Anonymous No.10730801]

>>10730764
>>10730778
>Let me ask you a question, when you play a game, do you think "wow they really cut corners here and saved money, this is so marketable and cost effective?".
I do. That was my inner monologue when playing the majority of Nintendo Wii games (and to some extent the GameCube). I understood what Nintendo was doing from a business perspective, where they intentionally kept costs low or where they relied on filler to extend the length of the game.

>Do you not want art to be the highest standard it can be? I just don't get where you're coming from. It's like fast food vs gourmet food. Sure fast food is fine sometimes, even enjoyable. But you will never remember it or enjoy it like you would a high class meal.
I do. I would love it if everything was high-quality. That is why I'm not projecting myself onto the world. I'm reflecting reality, not my own personal taste. You guys were projecting arguments onto an imaginary fantasy strawman anon. The reality is McDonald's makes billions of dollars every year, most people eat like garbage, and don't take care of their health. I don't live in fantasy land where everyone is cooking their own meals and exercise daily.

It just happens that I prefer simplicity. Like pic related is the perfect amount of detail for me, personally. I never said I like AI: I said that to majority of the people (that live on planet Earth), AI pixel art will look the same because they do not care about details. Business-minded people who fund said games (and pay the salary of pixel artists) know this.

>>10730778
If you stopped 100 random people in Best Buy and asked them to name 10 visual artists they would not be able to do it. If you asked 100 anons to name the person who drew the art for Super Mario in the early 1990s, I'd wager majority of passive readers (not the 1% that actually post in threads) wouldn't be able to name him. I'm in the minority, speaking about the majority.

[Anonymous No.10730817]

And for reference, here's a highly-detailed pixel art I saved ages ago because I found it technically impressive. It's simply unfeasible to imagine this level of quality in a commercially released full-length game.

[Anonymous No.10730832]

>>10730801
Why do you need to know the name of artists to know whether you liked the art or not.

You're not speaking for the majority. You're speaking for men in suits who if they had their way wouldn't put any effort into anything because it saves money.

Also the fact that you actually respect a game for intentionally cutting corners says all that needs to be said really.

>>10730817
That was made by snake, the artist for Owlboy (and one of my personal favourite artists, I always admired his work), who put a similar level of effort into the graphics for the game. So thanks for a fantastic example.

[Anonymous No.10730863]

>>10730832
>Also the fact that you actually respect a game for intentionally cutting corners says all that needs to be said really.
You cannot reason. Shows you're an artist. Too much imagination and emotionality. I never said I respected Nintendo cutting corners. I said I recognized it, which is in a different compartment from approving of it.

>similar level of effort
We have quite a different definition of "similar" when you think this looks the same as the Chip & Dale one. And I grabbed this screenshot from the Steam advert page. This is the Metal Slug 3 conversation all over again.

[Anonymous No.10730867]

>>10730801
You think about commercial profitability while playing games and you don't cook or exercise yourself? Do you jerk off to Forbes too?

[Anonymous No.10730872]

>>10730863
Okay, so you like everyone else dislike when games intentionally cut corners? Got it.

And if you can't see the effort put into that image, then you're a fucking retard who shouldn't be having this conversation.

[Anonymous No.10730895]

>>10730760
Fun game. Looks like shit.

[Anonymous No.10730915]

>>10730867
Great reasoning skills there.

>>10730872
I see the bait and switch compared to the usual screenshots (the money shot >>10725175) and that. Still, it looks good. But it's not my style and it does not appeal to me. Particularly that grass. You're a pixel artist and your identity is tied up in it, so I suppose it's unrealistic of me to expect that you would remain objective (or have any unique insights) about something so close to your heart.

[Anonymous No.10730928]

>>10730895
you really have to wonder why they thought they had to have 90% of the environments have blocks with screaming faces on them. I suppose it's clear messaging about what's what, and i suppose it's supposed to be funny?

[Anonymous No.10730936]

>>10724490
I played it as a kid on a CRT and I thought it looked ugly then too.

[Anonymous No.10730951]

>>10730915
I'm a musician before I'm a pixel artist. I haven't pixelled in years, if I draw these days its either pen on paper or a tablet with photoshop. I only brought it up to explain how I could easily determine what makes it obvious that image you posted was AI generated. But a layman would still be able to tell, they wouldn't be able to point it out, but they'd have the feeling that something wasn't right. And if you compared something that was made with love to that AI image, they'd be able to tell. As AI art becomes more commonplace, people will just get a sense for it like they did with stock images. Reviews will say "AI art, game bad".

Anyway, how could it be a bait and switch when you got that image from the steam page? And besides that, it's pouring with effort and soul. You probably didn't notice because you don't have an eye for it. But the Chip and Dale mockup you posted has repeated sprites too, I assume thats what you're referring to, because if you were being objective about this you'd be able to see that irrespective of personal taste, the pixel art in Owlboy is some of the highest quality ever made.

[Anonymous No.10731002]

>>10730915
No reasoning needed, you're an egotistical business nerd mistakenly claiming to have objective artistic taste. Like someone that jerks off to Forbes.

[Anonymous No.10731005]

>>10730951
Same. I made music and pixel art for years (hence why I had those images saved), and I use AI when it's not worth my time to draw or write things myself. I can fix up AI art to the point where you would not be able to tell it's AI, but it does take a good 6-8 hours of editing. Or I will trace the art, art direct it, and fix up the issues as I go. I bring this up because it's completely irrelevant to the argument. Laymen who don't use AI cannot tell or they do not care. YouTube thumbnails and AI narrations are clear indicators of this.

I don't think Owlboy looks any better than Zelda: Minish Cap, except with more shaded rectangles jutting out of the rocks and a higher resolution.

[Anonymous No.10731013]

>>10731002
>No reasoning needed
They're kinda needed though, since you couldn't deduce from that paragraph that I, in fact, do cook my own meals and exercise daily. You should read a Forbes magazine after I'm done with it.

[Anonymous No.10731020]

>>10731005
If you're using bottom of the barrel youtube shit as a defence then you obviously have a screw loose. People hate that shit, and AI generated content never does well. And I said that they would feel that something is off and as AI becomes more commonplace people will become more aware of it.

You'd get things done a lot faster if you just made it from scratch rather than fuckign around with an AI that will never know whats in your head like you do. Also if you consider anything about what you make not worth your time to put effort into, then I don't want anything that you make. At that point you might as well not make anything.

And regardless of whether or not you like OwlBoys art style. It's objectively high effort. The game took 6 years to make ffs. Your whole point was that it's not commercially viable but you posted an artist who spent 6 years of his life making pixel art for a game.

[Anonymous No.10731029]

>>10731013
I deduce your need to emphasize participation in basic human activity as an indication that you don't.

[Anonymous No.10731034]

>>10731020
>If you're using bottom of the barrel youtube shit as a defence then you obviously have a screw loose.
Who do you think buys games? Have you ever communicated with randoms in an online game? Come on man. The average consumer knows NOTHING about your craft or expertise. You're being illogical by assuming people know what you know.

>Also if you consider anything about what you make not worth your time to put effort into, then I don't want anything that you make. At that point you might as well not make anything.
Except I'm getting paid for it. It's not worth my time on flat rate projects, no. With that statement of yours we can make a reasonable guess that you have not been paid for your art before which puts this entire conversation into perspective.

[Anonymous No.10731049]

>>10731034
nta You don't need to buy art to enjoy it.

[Anonymous No.10731050]

>>10731020
>Your whole point was that it's not commercially viable but you posted an artist who spent 6 years of his life making pixel art for a game.
Also, to add to this, I'm happy for him and his success. He was able to do this on his own dime, however, not on someone else's. That's the difference. Also it was 10 years.

[Anonymous No.10731059]

>>10724179
this

[Anonymous No.10731062]

>>10731050
>I'm happy for him but I still care more about time and wages

[Anonymous No.10731104]

>>10730801
>I do.

[Anonymous No.10731110]

>>10731034
You don't have to be an artist or have a deep understanding of an art form to be able to tell quality from shit. Most people are able to see that something is well made, even if they don't know why. There's something inherent about high quality that shines through no matter what.

I am a professional musician btw, I make money from my own music, people actually come to see me play my music specifically. Its because I put effort into what I do. I guess we can tell why you're just a freelancer monkey working for other people instead of producing your own work, its because you make low effort shit.

Here's a question, why shouldn't they just use the AI directly instead of bothering to pay you for minor edits? I hope the irony of you arguing that businesses have no reason to put effort into something when you create bottom of the barrel shit and you actually will be replaced by AI since AI is already making your shit for you anyway isn't lost on you.

In a decade or so when AI is as commonplace as stock assets, people will recognise how little your "work" (if you can even call it that) is worth, and you will be valueless. The only way artists as freelancers or employees will be able to make money is by separating themselves from AI through quality. You have a very short term thing going on right now. Keep that in mind as you type your prompts.

>>10731050
It wasn't a solo project, it was developed by a studio. You just can't imagine people getting paid to put effort into something can you? Probably why you're making shit on fiverr instead of a creative lead.

[Anonymous No.10731118]

>>10730801
Do you work in advertising?

[Anonymous No.10731121]

>>10731110
No need to seethe. That's a lot of assumptions and projections out of thin air. I never had a Fiverr seller account in my life, other than, ironically, to pay musicians for session work.

>Here's a question, why shouldn't they just use the AI directly instead of bothering to pay you for minor edits?
This is how we know you don't understand business at all. You don't understand opportunity cost in any realm, including why one wouldn't want to overproduce pixel art.

I could make the argument OwlBoy could have been done in half the time, sell the same amount of copies, and then the profit could have been used to hire more people to make an even more ambitious project. And now you have two projects under your belt instead of one. No one lives forever.

[Anonymous No.10731123]

>>10731034
Also people only hire freelancers when they don't have the money to form a team. Which really does put this conversation into perspective.

[Anonymous No.10731125]

>>10731121
You assumed shit about me. Seemed only fair to do the same for you. Also you are a freelancer monkey.

And if you think it would have sold the same amount of copies with half the effort. You're deluded.

[Anonymous No.10731126]

Nope, it was the Neo Geo.

[Anonymous No.10731129]

>>10731126
I mean, just look at this

[Anonymous No.10731132]

>>10731129

[Anonymous No.10731134]

>>10731121
Also the opportunity is the same because you're just using AI anyway. The cost is lower because the cost of using an AI is significantly lower than paying you. You are unwittingly removing your value, as AI becomes more commonplace your work will dry up because you don't provide anything special.

[Anonymous No.10731135]

>>10731132

[Anonymous No.10731141]

>>10731110
>In a decade or so when AI is as commonplace as stock assets, people will recognise how little your "work" (if you can even call it that) is worth, and you will be valueless. The only way artists as freelancers or employees will be able to make money is by separating themselves from AI through quality. You have a very short term thing going on right now. Keep that in mind as you type your prompts.
Probably true. There's a lot of free assets for games out there, many are even quite high quality, but in terms of artistic effort and the use of AI, we're most probably looking at a continuation of the Unity Assetflip On Steam train. It's not gonna matter very much if you can conjure up some decent assets via proompting because it's gonna make your game look like the cheap and disposable cashgrab that it is.

I think the best utility which AI is going to have for game assets is that it'll make it quick and easy to make mockups and placeholders for testing, which would actually be quite useful and valuable, but a game made up of such assets would not look that great.
On the negative end of this, I can picture a trend of laziness where a game launches in a protracted early access with the promise that they're going to replace those assets.

[Anonymous No.10731143]

>>10731125
>>10731123
>>10731134
Not even close. My assumption was based on your naive argument that...
>Also if you consider anything about what you make not worth your time to put effort into, then I don't want anything that you make. At that point you might as well not make anything.
Majority of retro games we are here to discuss were made for a paycheck with tight deadlines and budgets. Most people working on the games had no choice but work on the game put in front of them. No one wakes up and says "I cannot wait to work on the Barbie on the Super Nintendo! I am living the dream!" but they think "I'm getting better at my craft every day and now I have something to put on my resume. I worked with a major brand."

Or they were paid flat price like in the Atari era. So the quicker they got it done the better (obviously an example of where efficiency does not work out too well).

>And if you think it would have sold the same amount of copies with half the effort. You're deluded.
Why not? Most people who buy games don't even play them for more than an hour. Look at the achievement unlocks on Steam for proof.

>You are unwittingly removing your value
Nah. I'm allocating my time to areas that bring value. I'd rather utilize AI than spend four hours trawling through stock image sites. AI is nothing but a better search engine for stock images for me at this point. No need to project anon, I don't dislike you for your opinions and I'm only being opinionated because you're condescending.

[Anonymous No.10731146]

Kiss already you spergs

[Anonymous No.10731149]

Worst thread on /vr/ right now

[Anonymous No.10731158]

>>10724194
That's retarded. Also peak 2d is Taito F3, CPS 2 and Neo Geo. Saturn, nope, PSX, hell no

[Anonymous No.10731162]

Do 2D PS2 games count as pixel art, or not?

[Anonymous No.10731163]

>>10731143
You just posted two examples of games that people either actively hate or have long since forgotten because of how low effort they were. Short term thinking leads to short term profits. That has much less chance of working today when anyone can easily look up the quality of a game online.

Most people buy games based on perceived quality, even if they don't play them. With half the effort comes half the quality which means less sales.

Why would anyone pay you to use an AI as a stock image search engine when they could do it themselves? Are you pretending that you didn't say you are a freelance artist now? Trying to make out that you are working on your own projects instead? Either way, I don't want anything that you make.

Also as I said, people buy my work directly, and they come to see me perform my own compositions. I'm not reliant on clients paying me to type prompts waiting for the day they will eventually figure out they can do it for themselves for cheaper. So how could it be projecting?

[Anonymous No.10731165]

>>10731162
>ps2
>pic
zoomers

[Anonymous No.10731170]

>>10731141
Honestly even for concept work it would ruin a game. AIs are incapable of vision and creativity. Aside from replacing asset flips like you mentioned, I can't see AI being used in a serious setting beyond things like generating trees and rocks for games with a realistic art style. Maybe turning a concept drawing into a starting point for a 3D model? I can only really see it working for games going for realism. Even then, there's a certain je ne sais quio that will likely be missing.

[Anonymous No.10731171]

>>10731162
Good job at posting a Neo Geo game.

[Anonymous No.10731198]

>>10731163
This has nothing to do with retro games now, no one cares about what I do or what you do. See here: >>10731149

[Anonymous No.10731207]

>>10731198
Why now? I told you to fuck off back to /g/ and shit up a stable diffusion thread hours ago because youve been derailing this thread pretty much since the start.

I don't mind that you're stopping, it's for the best. I just dislike how you're trying to deflect the blame to me just because you've ran out of arguments.

In that case:

>concession accepted

[Anonymous No.10731210]

>>10731207
>Why now?
Because you're boring? I'll respond to other anons, but you're too emotional, your arguments make no sense, and if you notice I'm the only person that is replying to you.

[Anonymous No.10731214]

>>10731210
So first it was because we're not talking about retro games, now it's because I'm emotional and boring?

Yeah, concession accepted.

[Anonymous No.10732007]

>>10731165
>>10731171
>NO YOU HAVE TO POST A PICTURE OF WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT YOU CANT USE AN UNRELATED PICTURE
Are you retarded

[Anonymous No.10733112]

>>10731214
You accept you think of games as products because you're boring?

[Anonymous No.10733353]

>>10733112
You're not too great at following a conversation are you anon?

[Anonymous No.10733431]

>>10733353
I'm asking you.

[Anonymous No.10733462]

>>10733431
If you follow the conversation you'd recognise that the person you responded to isn't the one who thinks of games as products.

[Anonymous No.10734172]

>>10724453
what game?

[Anonymous No.10734345]

>>10734172
Red Earth by capcom

[Anonymous No.10734838]

>>10724156
It had the hardware to be the peak of 2D... but not the resolution, so no, it isn't the peak at all.

[Anonymous No.10735671]

>>10732007
get the fuck out of here

[Anonymous No.10735953]

>>10734838
>It had the hardware to be the peak of 2D... but not the resolution, so no, it isn't the peak at all.
The resolution was insanely large at the time. Are you stupid?