How I feel now everytime I load up a new 8bit indie game. I want those kinds of game mechanics. I want those style of games from the perspective of playstyle. I do not enjoy 8bit graphics.
Yeah. I have a similar experience. Those developers were working pretty hard within the constraints of the mediums they were working with and they made some truly amazing stuff as a result. I feel like 8bit is an attempt at nostalgia in new games and it doesn’t land for me. I know I’m probably in the minority. That’s okay though.
This is how I feel about mobile games. Even the good mobile games will have some epically animated scene that shows all out war between a bunch of magical badasses with explosions and all kinds of epic shit.
Then the gameplay is some low effort turn based game where the characters barely move and the attack effects are pathetic light shows.
It looks like the artwork guy got one order for a sci-fi videogame, and one order for a hilbilly folk band album, and was like “I think I know how to halve my workload!”
I think it’s still true, after all the success of minimalist games (like vvvvv) and similar concepts is a tangible proof of that. Than, if we go back to the past, both atari and nintendo games used the in-game gaphics on the cover art. I remember getting into games cover art after that avgn cover art christmas episodes…side note: they’re still fun, give it a watch of you want.
I dunno if that’s the same. VVVVVV at no point indicates it’s supposed to represent anything more complex than what it looks like, it just embraces minimalism as it is.
You’re right on this…that was to say that minimalism never disappeared. I mean, as the technology evolved we adopted complex and detailed graphics. Of course, that was what they could do with what they had. Still, some atari games were complex, if not cryptic, some would be now full arg. Like that swordquest series, with modern technology that would have been a huge arg.
Remember the coverart for Phalanax and how it had NOTHING to do with the game at all? And when asked the company said they simply put a cover they thought would be eyecatching.
Why a random old coot with a banjo on a rocking chair would accomplish that is beyond me
Games today (also games in the mid 90s) tend to focus on graphics and not as much gameplay, problem with this is that they tend to age poorly, which is why Atari, Famicom, and C64 games are well remembered and still being played to this day but Amiga games aren’t as much, they were primarily designed for graphics and thus look dated today.
It’s also why many Indie games embrace the retro style and game mechanics instead of going for graphical wows. These games are just relevant and enjoyed for longer.
Even funnier with the boasting of “state of the art high resolution graphics” at the top. Though to be fair, the actual game looks infinitely better than that cover.
No, it was inaccurate, even at the time. The Famicom was built to cost and and mainly used cheap off-the-shelf components that were already obsolete when the system first released in 1983. The NES released in North America the same year as the Commodore Amiga, a system that actually was cutting edge, and represented a big leap forward in what home computers could do graphically. By the time Mega Man released, the Amiga was on it's second revision and other home computers were rapidly catching up to it's capabilities.
While Mega Man was one of the best games on the NES, it ran at the same resolution as every other game on the system, and was stuck working within the same limited color palette and low sprite limit that were more than five years behind the curve when it released.
This isn’t even the right color scheme for the character, so it’s not like they misinterpreted the sprite
Rock over here looks like he shit himself upon seeing a Mettaur and is trying (and failing) to pretend he didn’t.
Mega Man doesn’t even use a gun, he uses a Buster. The only time Mega Man has used a gun are instances that parody this boxart or rare occasions like when his internet incarnation uses the Gun Del Sol during crossover events with Boktai
I love bashing AI art but in AI art it’s usually the details that you spot at second glance that makes it fall apart. The Mega Man cover is just fundamentally messed up to a degree where even AI art is miles ahead.
Yeah true, AI art is more “looks OK at first glance, but smaller details are messed up”, while this one is the opposite of that so “smaller details are actually fine, but as a whole it looks quite messed up” haha
If you really want to experience the magic of a good and a terrible covert art check the us version of ico compared to the japanese/eu cover art. Now, that’s gonna be fun…
Spanish developers using Alfonso Azpiri’s art for their games is actually genius. If I was a kid in the late 80’s I would have bought game over or R.A.M the moment I saw the cover.
Totally agree. A flashy light show will only keep people’s focus for a hot minute, but good core gameplay will keep players engaged for so much longer. Just look at dwarf fortress, lol.
I would say It Depends. I play almost exclusively indy games and yes AAA graphics aren’t what I’m expecting.
But some indy games just look like the dev threw the sprites together in less than half a day and it can be offputting. Dated can be ok, but rushed and butt ugly… Hell I almost skipped Rimworld way back when because the visuals looked so lazy.
The gameplay has to be really freaking fantastic to cover that up. In Rimworld’s case it was.
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