/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.5604985]

when did sprites peak?

[Anonymous No.5604986]

>>5604985
5th gen

[Anonymous No.5604994]

Megaman 8

[Anonymous No.5604996]

the future

[Anonymous No.5604997]

>>5604985
Amy Rose a cute.

[Funcoland Clown No.5604998]

>>5604986
All, during the 5th gen era anyway though a lot of the most masterful sprite work was in late release 4th gen console titles.

[Anonymous No.5605002]

>>5604985
They still haven't.

[Anonymous No.5605013]

>>5604985
Street Fighter 3

[Anonymous No.5605045]

They still haven't hit a peak and won't for a long time likely. In the retro era it was SF3 though.

[Anonymous No.5605096]

MvC2 and SF3

[Anonymous No.5606416]

>>5605045
Fuuuuuck

[Anonymous No.5606454]

Does anyone know why many 5th gen games look like this? I can understand the backgrounds looking rather plain because it was low poly 3D, and I can also have into account that this screenshot in particular is oversized and stretched compared to the original resolution, but even if you play this on a CRT, the sprites themselves look like they're cut-out papers and the colors are washed up.
Shin Butoden on Saturn is the same although it has 2D backgrounds.
When you compare this to the SNES DBZ games, which have crisp, soulful spritework, it's weird.. why they couldn't do the same here but better? Why did we get this weird paper cutouts with washed up colors?
It's not DBZ games only, the same with games like Strider 2.

[Anonymous No.5606473]

>>5604985
>another stealth gba thread

[Anonymous No.5606617]

>>5606473
GBA only has dogshit sprites in a crappy resolution though...

[Anonymous No.5606676]

>>5604985
16bit-era.
Amiga, Genesis/megadrive and SNES times.
And the shit I forgot to mention

[Anonymous No.5606687]

>>5606676
Please be bait

[Anonymous No.5606704]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFSQ0Pl4KDk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IM7u1xxqNY

[Anonymous No.5606728]

>>5606704
>>5606687
I'd say whenever Metal Slug came out, those sprites are peak.

[Anonymous No.5606730]

>>5604985
changes per console and is subject to each company's creative direction. typically examples i think of are capcom peaking in the arcade era with marvel vs series and street fighter 3 series. i'm a bigger fan of the alpha series graphics because they reflect vidya more and weren't trying to hold up this 'fancy' look to them the way sfiii does with wavy clothes and shit. snk also makes a huge mark with its animations of smoothness as shown in samurai shodown 5 and last blade 2. on the super nintendo, notable entries include star ocean 1 and bahamut lagoon's in battle sprites. other honorable mentions are sd3 and tales of phantasia. the genesis with sonic 3 looked fantastic. during the ps1 era we got games with fluent animation done by sprites put together piece by piece like xenogears allowing for dynamic animations that made the characters feel a bit more 'loose' when animated as it allowed for variable sets of animation like arms waving from side to side not always being the same exact 1-2 frame set. other good mentions on psx are megaman x4 and gundam battle assault 2, although gba2's animations are put together from pieces that just rotate and wobble sort of similarly to xenogears. its all about context. thats the magic of pixel art. there is no 'peak' because art is subjective.
>>5605045
this unironically looks like something out of a shitty flash game.

[Anonymous No.5606731]

>>5606728
If you mentioned arcades of the era I wouldn't have laughed at you as much. Metal Slug does have excellent spitework though.

[Anonymous No.5606736]

>>5606730
>changes per console and is subject to each company's creative direction.

Lamest most cop out answer of the thread lol

[Anonymous No.5606743]

>>5606731
Wasn't a lot of the spritework for fighting games during Metal Slug's reign done by tracing predrawn artwork?

[Anonymous No.5606785]

>>5606736
theres nothing objective about art considering its place is attributed to the context of the creator.
0/10 bait.

[Anonymous No.5607235]

>>5606743
It's still done pixel by pixel. The hand-drawn art is just a guide.

[Anonymous No.5607238]

>>5604985
They peaked the moment Amy Rose was made into a sprite. She's pure sex.

[Anonymous No.5607319]

>>5606743
This is how most pixel art is made, particularly as you get to a certain level of size and fidelity. There's no purity to pixel art in this sense and the people who act like using hand drawn stuff as a base or reference is somehow a bad thing are idiots, it's all mixing techniques as needed.

[Anonymous No.5607328]

When arcades were relevant.

[Anonymous No.5607336]

Street Fighter 3rd strike? After that people became obsessed with CGIing their characters.

[Anonymous No.5607338]

>>5604985
They didn't.

[Anonymous No.5607343]

a year ago

[Anonymous No.5607513]

>>5606454
Without a clearer pic, I’m gonna guess they’re digitized graphics

[Anonymous No.5607518]

>>5607513
ofcourse they are. ultimate battle 22 not only looks like some of the worst digitized animation but it also plays unfortunately like shit too. its a shame given the size of the roster for once on a retro dbz game. until budokai came along we wuz starved for a decent dbz fg. they shoulda just gave capcom the license :sadface:

[Anonymous No.5607519]

>>5604985
Legit the best team in the game. Only those who can't be bothered to hit b when they jump are just bad.

[Anonymous No.5607529]

>>5605045
Despite technically being a sprite, this is hand-drawn and not actually pixel art, which is what I assume OP was referring to

[Anonymous No.5607804]

>>5607529
That seems incredibly arbitrary to me.

[Anonymous No.5607813]

>>5607529
I'm not so sure of that, seeing as the industry veered for real-time rendered polys and that could be considered an "opposite" of sprites.

[Anonymous No.5607839]

>>5606785
There actually are some objective things about art but that's beside the point, even if there weren't it doesn't make that any less of a meaningless cop out response.

[Anonymous No.5607846]

>>5606617
You know that's not true you giant faggot.

[Anonymous No.5607856]

>>5607846
It's literally true. The resolution of the screen sucks. It's physically incapable of displaying high quality spritework.

[Anonymous No.5607857]

>>5607338
Yeah indie sprite work will surely implode technically!!! Come on man, no relevant game uses sprites today.


>>5604985
I think it peaked during 95. The shit made for arcade's were batshit crazy.

[Anonymous No.5607860]

>>5607856
But it's a handheld man, with snes-tier graphics. In my book that isnt bad, mother had some weird pixel animations and backgrounds.

[Anonymous No.5607889]

>>5607860
I'm not saying it wasn't a neat system, just that it can't display high quality images.

[Anonymous No.5608304]

>>5607529
lmao do you understand how pixel art is made? it's all traced you dumb fuck

[Anonymous No.5608307]

>>5607857
Owlboy, and Iconoclasts think you're irrelevant

[Anonymous No.5608321]

>>5608307
>relevant

[Anonymous No.5608380]

>>5604985
KOF XIII but it's not retro.

[Anonymous No.5608935]

>>5604985
5th gen for sure.

You could pretty much do whatever you wanted.

[Anonymous No.5608942]

>>5607839
Seething

[Anonymous No.5609023]

>>5607839

soothing

[Anonymous No.5609026]

>>5604996
>5604996
objectively wrong, it has already peaked, some time in retro era

[Anonymous No.5609519]

>>5605045
Vanillaware's games are fucking hideous.

[Anonymous No.5609557]

>>5604985
sometime during the 5th gen and the early 6th gen, including Neo Geo games released around this time frame

[Anonymous No.5609558]

There's people here who think you can do pixel art without knowing how to draw

[Anonymous No.5609593]

>>5607804
>>5607813
>>5608304
Don't reply to this goon

[Anonymous No.5609606]

With 3rd Strike and Breath of Fire 4.

[Anonymous No.5609607]

>>5609593
The last one is true though.

[Anonymous No.5609620]

That's an unanswerable question. Each system has such radically different capabilities graphically that it's not really a fair comparison.

[Anonymous No.5609651]

>>5609558
I'm a horrible artist with no drawing ability and even I made some very nice 32px icons in the Apple II version of Broderbund Print Shop (early black & white only version) representing each of the major consoles that I'm still proud of. My artist friend who knew I couldn't draw asked where I got them, and after I told him I made them, he didn't believe me and asked again. I only used the line tool, oval tool (for the circles of the Genesis), and lots of single pixel clicking to make dots.

Modern pixel art, eh maybe only if you had days and days to work on little details, but it might still be possible if you're working off an existing design. Might be a distinct skill like how in comics you have separate pencilers, inkers, and colorists.

[Anonymous No.5609658]

quick reminder that hand drawn art =/= pixel art

[Anonymous No.5609702]

>>5609557
>>5607856
>>5606731
unironically ugly, flat, and lacks depth. why do people always post the crab? just because its big and moves? its animated essentially the same way gundam battle assault 2's sprites are and thats barely any.

[Anonymous No.5609745]

>>5609702
well that's just like your opinion man

[Anonymous No.5609749]

>>5609702
Post a sprite you genuinely think looks better.

[Anonymous No.5609751]

>>5608942
What do you even think I'm supposed to be seething over?

[Anonymous No.5609754]

Unironically the original DS

[Anonymous ~ No.5609876]

>>5604985
With Diablo 1 and Starcraft 1.

IF not-retro then... Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura.

This too.>>5608380

[Anonymous No.5610004]

>>5609702
what about this one?

[Anonymous No.5610006]

GBA is an example of a hardware with amazing 2D capabilities limited by the terrible resolution.

[Anonymous No.5610017]

>>5609702
true

[Anonymous No.5610024]

>>5609702
false

[Anonymous No.5610031]

>>5610006
I recommend you play on one of these. It's a shame you have to shrink the size to get good resolution, but it's so clean.

[Anonymous No.5610059]

>>5610006
Game Boy Advance has less resolution than the very first bitmap games. It's weird that GBA considered too advanced for this board.

[Anonymous No.5610096]

Dreamcast era (CPS3/NAOMI) with nods to Sega Saturn and Neo Geo

[Anonymous No.5610135]

5th gen

[Anonymous No.5611602]

>>5608380
KOF XII and XIII look amazing from a technical standpoint, but the character design looks pretty bad in comparison to older games

[Anonymous No.5611616]

>>5610031
I know this is almost a non-/vr/ question, but is the micro even compatible with the ez flash?
Cuz if it does, i may consider upgrading from a gba sp to a micro.

[Anonymous No.5611718]

>>5607336
Unfortunately, SF3 Third Strike already started using a lot of render and 3D graphics, especially for the backgrounds. The Street Fighter 3 series has amazing pixel animation, but I don't like how they used 3D and scanned painted art for backgrounds.

It's very difficult to say when they peaked. 16-bits games and arcades (including the Neo Geo) are probably the kind of pixel art I like the most: Metal Slug series, Sonic The Hedgehog, Shinobi III, Treasure games, Contra 3, Yoshi's Island, Street Fighter 2, Capcom beat'em ups, Parodius, Undercover Cops, Boogie Wings, etc.

The 32-bits era had some pretty amazing examples too, but to compete with the all new 3D polygon graphics, sometimes artists went a bit too far using a lot of fancy effects or really saturated color palettes that worked against the pixel art.

[Anonymous No.5611737]

>>5611602
those are 3d rendered

[Anonymous No.5611792]

>>5605045
Nice, kind of like that big titty witch from Goblin Slayer.

[Anonymous No.5611862]

>>5604985

When dragons crown II will come out. Unless snk and crapcom quit being such colossal faggots and decide to make sprite based games again.

[Anonymous No.5611991]

>>5604985
1989

[Anonymous No.5612027]

I don't like the look, but Game Boy Advance games are the basis for most modern pixel art. Colorful, blown out, no real RAM or storage limits.

[Anonymous No.5612054]

Sprites rest no good when they started to spend less time in it, Sonic one and SOTN was more then 3 yaers.

[Anonymous No.5612239]

>>5609519
>

[Anonymous No.5612251]

>>5607518
>until budokai came along we wuz starved for a decent dbz fg.
Honestly, roster isn't everything.
As for "starved for decent dbz fg", Super Butoden 2 was well received and is still a fan favorite. And it doesn't have a big roster (not only that but has a kinda weird roster with characters like Cell Jr or Boujack and Zangya, which imo makes the game more interesting than having the same dudes as always).
>they shoulda just gave capcom the license
Capcom didn't make extraordinarily big rosters, though. Original SF II has a small roster.
If you mean because of the gameplay, yeah, but honestly I like the fact that Butoden isn't a SF clone and has unique traits.

[Anonymous No.5612471]

>>5612027
what game is this?

[Anonymous No.5612480]

>>5612471
Owlboy

[Anonymous No.5612718]

>>5612027
They're really not.

[Anonymous No.5612725]

>>5611602
Yeah they fucked up the character designs big time. Falcoon was decent doing fan art but when they made his style into sprites they fucked the whole feeling of the series.

>>5611737
3D as the basis yes, but that's irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.5612867]

>>5609606
This.

[Anonymous No.5613008]

>>5612725
not the anon that said so originally, but no, even using 3D renders to draw over is way worse. that shit is aids bro

[Anonymous No.5613015]

>>5613008
You have a child's understanding of how any computer art was really made.

[Anonymous No.5613236]

>>5613015
congratulations, you realized computer art =/= pixel art

[Anonymous No.5613247]

sprites are pretty consistently getting better and better. /vr/ is ironically a bad place to ask that question because all anyone on here does is bitch about how everything looks like a "flash game" and fondles themselves to the memory of the first time they saw metal slug 3

[Anonymous No.5613775]

>>5613236
You misunderstand yet again, pixel art is included in that. You're clueless about all of it.

[Anonymous No.5614864]

>>5613775
0/10

[Anonymous No.5617084]

>>5612027
I wish more modern retro games look like that. They usually look more like this.

[Anonymous No.5617103]

>>5614864
So what are you saying, it's only pixel art if it's blocky? Because that sounds like what you're saying...

[Anonymous No.5617859]

>>5605045
I love Vanillaware. Their art direction is always beautiful. George is based, as well. But aren't those more puppet animations than pure sprite animations?

[Anonymous No.5617970]

>>5617859
I don't think there's an important difference but I would agree that the character design is better than the animation. I do like them, but would hardly call them perfect. The question is when did sprites peak and I think they still haven't, though some have got really damn awesome looking.

[Anonymous No.5618053]

>>5609651
Post your artwork Anon :)

[Anonymous No.5618419]

>>5618053
Will do. The Apple and floppies I saved the icons on are long gone, but I still have 4 of them (out of 5 iirc) printed out from a dot matrix ImageWriter II somewhere. I made both a SNES and Super Famicom but I might have only printed out the SNES. I always wanted to scan and recreate them in Paint just so I'd have them saved somewhere again. Ahh, the kind of free time you have when you're 12...

[Anonymous No.5618486]

>>5617103
yes anon. if its made literally pixel by pixel that is pixel art. do you lack enough grooves to comprehend this or are you pretending to be stupid?

[Anonymous No.5618507]

>>5618486
You do realize that virtually none of the art listed as pixel art is done that way though... Right? You're not twelve are you?

[Anonymous No.5618609]

>>5612027
I absolutely despise this style of pixel art (that so many people really abuse the fuck out of these days: low contrast, pastel, "flatty," smudgy. People consider this style to be some kind of m"Evolution." Nothing is further from the truth. It just looks messy, gay and uninteresting. I also can't stand indie devs obsession with giving characters "black dot eyes."

It's probabaly because most pixel art is now done by all these art school fags who bring a lot of art school conceits and hangups with the shit they produce. Most pixel art from back in the day wasn't made by oversensitive deviantartlets with art degrees, they were made by people with "lesser" talent and training, and those people actually came up with interesting shit, and their "misuse" of palettes and rigid style only served to add character to the work.

I look at shit like Owl Boy and all I can think is "I probably wouldn't like the artist if I ever met him. I'd probably want to beat the shit out of him."

[Anonymous No.5618668]

>>5618609
Meow!

[Anonymous No.5618841]

>>5610059
GBA is unironically and unequivocally a "retro" system, and all the mods here are damning themselves to punishment in an afterlife every day they continue to sustain this blasphemous sin of prohibition

[Anonymous No.5619660]

>>5618841
GBA just has shitty graphics, that's all. It's in no way a portable SNES, it didn't even get any actually good ports of SNES games and all it's original games are very clearly from the 00's in terms of design.

The only, only thing that separates it from the PS2, GameCube or Xbox is that it has a shitty display with a low resolution. And if you think that's what "retro" is then you're god damned retarded.

[Anonymous No.5619685]

>>5618609
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the artist who drew that is an art school graduate, Satoshi Nakai. American culture just disparages artists, so no "serious" people do art simply because of peer and social pressure.

[Anonymous No.5619778]

>>5619685
Yeah, pretty much anyone good enough to be producing art in a professional capacity would have had to go to school to improve their skills. The problem is that during that time they will no doubt be indoctrinated into such radical notions as gay and trans folks are also people and deserve our support and respect on their journeies through life. He can't abide a notion as horrific as that so the only natural course is to simply hate anything new in fear that it might be infected with this disease of acceptance and cling to old shitty drawings in the hope that they're "based" enough to withstand social justice waiting to judge them.

tears are delicious

[Anonymous No.5619806]

>>5618609
God. You sound like a douchebag. Edgy. You're talking about videogames, retard.. don't take it too seriously.

[Anonymous No.5619932]

>>5618609
I can't tell if this is bait or not, but the main Capcom fighting game spriter and character designer went to art school.

[Anonymous No.5619940]

>>5619932
It's almost certainly not bait and that's what makes it so delightful.

[I'm currently playing Z-Exempl(...) No.5619948]

>>5604985
When you can no longer see the pixels.

[Anonymous No.5620025]

>>5619948
So if you have a shitty blurry CRT where the waterfall looks like a smear then Sonic is no longer pixel art?

[Anonymous No.5620073]

>>5620025
>making the ludicrous claim that you can't see pixels on an old television

That's hilarious. It's also stupid. Any television with such a blurry screen would be cheap as fuck, even back in the day, and would have died by now. No one who owns such a set (that amazingly still works) would ever play video games on it. These people play their games on mid price sets from the early 90's - and that's the starting point. Anything else is retarded.

Have a day off from being a complete faggot. I know it's difficult, but you can do it. I believe in you. We all believe in you.

[Anonymous No.5620132]

>>5604985
SNK in general were absolute pros with their sprite art.

[Anonymous No.5620171]

>>5620073
>missing the point this badly

[Anonymous No.5620185]

>>5619932
I agree with him about the dot eyes. Also, he has a point about how maybe there's certain autism about perfection in pixel art that I see in a lot of forums, while a lot of classic Capcom, Irem or Konami arcade games had a lot of mistakes and even some laziness in title repetitions sometimes that wouldn't pass as great 2D art in some pixel art forums.

A lot of indies take 10 or more years working in their incredible pixel art games, and their art ends up being less memorable and charming than less ambitious classics like Midnight Wanderers or Alien Storm.

[Anonymous No.5620189]

>>5620185
Sorry, I meant "tile repetition".

[Anonymous No.5620297]

>>5619660
except that's all wrong and it's funny someone would even type it out

[Anonymous No.5620435]

>>5620297
No part of it is wrong at all. GBA games don't adhere to SNES era game design, they're just normal 00 era games in low res.

[Anonymous No.5621060]

>>5620435
Normal 2000s-era games were 3D.

[Anonymous No.5621090]

>>5610031
what about the shoulder buttons?

beside I already have a blue shell GBC how much would these tiny GBA run for?

[Anonymous No.5621213]

>>5620171
>Being of the belief that everyone prefers to play old games the way you do

Wrong, motherfucker. Not everyone wants to play a game on a TV that has a screen that looks like it's covered in Vaseline. You just keep pretending it's still 1983, you crusty spaz.

"Muh RF! Muh RF!"

I bet you're one of those out of shape, out of pocket, pathetic old fucks who drives around in some rusty, broken-down Pontiac Firebird, trying desperately to impress girls who are almost three times as young as you. Fucking pitiful if true (which it probably is, to some degree).

[Anonymous ~ No.5621260]

>>5621090
i heard they're tiny and uncomfy .

[Anonymous No.5621278]

>>5621060
You're confusing engine with game design. Do you mistake 2019 2D games as being like SNES as Well lol?

[Anonymous No.5621316]

>>5621213
Lol you're getting even further from it now

[Anonymous No.5621840]

Any examples of this pixel blending people talk about with CRT on dithered artwork?

[Anonymous No.5622130]

>>5618609
Couldn't agree more.

[Anonymous No.5622285]

>>5621278
How was 2000s GBA 2D different from 1990s SNES 2D?

>>5619660
>The only, only thing that separates it from the PS2, GameCube or Xbox is that it has a shitty display with a low resolution.
How is it closer to all that 2D on those systems than to SNES?

You haven't explained any of this yet. "lol"

[Anonymous No.5622430]

>>5622285
Something being 2D has nothing to do with it being retro any more than having low res graphics. Graphics really have nothing to do with it at all.

[Anonymous No.5622461]

>>5604985
cvs then later blaze blue and kof13

none are counted as retro

[Anonymous No.5622463]

>>5611792
The witch from Goblin slayer is a reference to this dummy

[Anonymous No.5622715]

It's a shame these games are so boring because they look great.

[Anonymous No.5622724]

>>5607519
Dammit

[Anonymous No.5622740]

about 2010.

[Anonymous No.5623013]

>>5622285
GBA is 32 bit.

[Anonymous No.5623565]

>>5610135
Nice ass crack

[Anonymous No.5624238]

>>5621840

[Anonymous No.5624494]

>>5624238
The blur looks like shit.

[Anonymous No.5624610]

>>5604985
I we going with the retarded definition of "sprites" propagated by RPG Maker communities that means only pixel art characters?

If not, I'd say with vector graphics.

[Anonymous No.5624615]

>>5609519
Muramasa is when they peaked
Everything after looks like shit

[Anonymous No.5624623]

>>5608307
Those games are irrelevant because they took 14 years to make and were disappointing

[Anonymous No.5624649]

>>5621840

[Anonymous No.5624657]

>>5618609
Holy shit, imagine being this based

[Anonymous No.5624745]

>>5622430
>>5623013
These still don't answer my questions or explain the original claim, which was this:
>The only, only thing that separates it from the PS2, GameCube or Xbox is that it has a shitty display with a low resolution.
and which I think is bullshit compared to the easy comparison one could make between SNES and GBA in terms of "game design" (anon's words).

As for telling me to ignore the 2D nature of almost all GBA games, this is a thread about sprites and the guy raising a stink about GBA is only attacking its non-retro status, yet apparently some people jumping in mid-point and trying to claim it's just a portable PS2 with shitty graphics, which is absurd and indefensible.

[Anonymous No.5624835]

>>5624649
Anything that isn't color->black, like something on this?

Or is that the only blending that exists?
which still looks good, just not what I expected