Older games that aged well. (strictly talking about graphics)

[SmellyBoy88]

Starfox Adventures on Gamecube. It still looks so pretty, all the vibrant colors and landscapes still fill me with glee just looking at them.





Plus, it's got dinosaurs. Who's gonna argue against a pretty game with dinosaurs in it?

 

[direkiller]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZsqqVuWo6U&feature=related
homeworld 2
the video is of a modded ship but its using participial effects from in the game already

 

[NuclearPenguin]

Symphony of the Night.
Baldurs Gate, Fallout, all those types of games.
Diablo 2
Civilization 3
Warcraft 3
Windwaker
I can keep this up all day, I reckon these games look wonderful, stylized, not high tech.

 

[NightHawk21]

The god of wars look pretty nice too.

 

[Treblaine]

Quake III Arena's graphics are pretty ageless compared to similar-era FPS games. It's a pity nobody plays it anymore.

Yep, and the engine is still being used today with the COD games including Modern Warfare 3, a whole 12 years later. Ok, a hugely expanded and quite modified engine but the same engine none the less.

It's a very good engine, the COD games are the only FPS games that can do a consistent 60-fps frame-rate, which is something that is hard to overestimate.

 

[Treblaine]

You know what also genuinely looks fantastic today?

Wind Waker from 2003:


You have to admit, if a game came out with that quality today it wouldn't stand out at all, it would be praised for it's graphics even.

 

[Danzavare]

Drawn and cell-shaded stuff tend to be pretty timeless. Other than those I'd say games that have a good use of colour and keep things happening on-screen. The sudden transformations and flashy hits on the first Bloody Roar make it very playable for me today.

A game that I think beats most (if not all) its genre counterparts in the modern day is Evil Zone. The game has too much style to go out of date.

 

[easternflame]

Oblivion aged pretty well. The other day I played it in a gaming rig, and we maxed the graphics, textures, everything and it looked amazing.

 

[run_forrest_run]

The Ratchet and Clank games; Sly Raccoon series; Persona 3.

 

[Thaa'ir]

Heroes of Might and Magic III/IV for me. Both games had absolutely gorgeous graphics, especially so with the third installment. I really miss the old sprite graphics.

HoMMIII's storybook graphics are still so cool to look at.

Um, Chrono Cross actually. The spell effects still look really cool to me.

 

[Zetona]

Age of Mythology remains gorgeous today thanks to its colorful and detailed art style.

 

[Ando85]

I notice a big consensus on 2D graphics and cel-shading looking the best. I agree. I believe some games still look great today, not due to technical specs, but art style. Take for example the new Tactics Ogre remake on PSP. They cleaned up the textures a little, but I think the most marked improvement is aesthetic. The character portraits during dialogue look extremely good.

 

[KelsieKatt]

Generally most games that focus on art style primarily age well because they were exactly what they were supposed to be and you can't really "improve" that much without tampering with the original vision.

Grim Fandango is a great example of that, especially since it used early 3D.

Technical graphics on the other hand simply don't age well.

 

[Vuliev]

A lot of the SNES major titles have aged well: Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger, etc.

Also, Project64 has managed to make N64 graphics also age well, though the contrast between the polygon-based models and the 2D background textures is sometimes jarring.

 

[The Code]

I know Morrowind in its basic vanilla form has NOT aged well by any standard, but it can still look fantastic if one adds the Graphics Overhaul mod. Yes, it's a mod that, obviously, overhauls the graphics, but it's still pretty cool.

 

[Koroviev]

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night still looks great to me, ironic how people all laughed at it still being 2D when it first came out.

I love Symphony of the Night. I mean, how can a pterodactyl wielding a spear while being foisted into the air by a gargoyle get old? One and only true answer: it cannot.

 

[I Stomp on Kittens]

Diablo 2 stills looks and plays fantastic

 

[Bernzz]

The original Metroid Prime has my vote. Playing it recently, watching Samus emerge from her ship the first time, and thinking "Wow, this game out in 2002?" Amazing.

Now, I know you mentioned graphics only, so this is off topic I guess, but that game has the best soundtrack I've heard for a game. Everything just fits, so perfectly. Especially the final boss music, god that track is creepy.

Now, as for another game that has aged well graphics wise, I agree with the people mentioning The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Game still looks gorgeous.

 

[TheGreatAndPowerfulZOG]

Wind Waker is probably the best example of this in existence. And to think the art style was such a big detractor for so many people. Twilight Princess looked more dated on THE DAY IT WAS RELEASED FFS.

A lot of SNES games come to mind. Good to see Chrono Trigger has already been mentioned, it was the first one that I thought of, actually. Just great sprites and an awesome art style. One that still blows my mind is Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. Like wait, SNES was capable of that?? The Sonic games still look kinda nice, even if some of the art direction was, well, on the tacky side.

From the N64/PS1 era not that much really jumps out at me. Super Mario 64, I guess. It's so colorful and simple, but it is starting to look a little blocky. The only on I can think of that really impresses me in retrospect is Conker's Bad Fur Day. Synched voice acting? In an N64 game? And the characters have individual fingers? And their eyes actually focus on things? That game really curb-stomped everything else of that generation on a technical level. Perfect Dark had some really impressive stuff mixed with a lot of butt ugly stuff. Like, half the face models looked incredibly real, the others were big blurry blobs. Most of the guns still look great today, except the alien guns look like complete shit.

PS2/Xbox, I think have been covered pretty well in previous posts: Metal Gear Solid 2&3, SoTC & Ico, Resident Evil 4, and lots of the cel-shaded stuff.

Nintendo is really good about this, usually. I see Mario Galaxy, Skyward Sword and SSBB still looking awesome ten years from now.

 

[TheGreatAndPowerfulZOG]

The original Metroid Prime has my vote. Playing it recently, watching Samus emerge from her ship the first time, and thinking "Wow, this game out in 2002?" Amazing.

This. Can't believe I forgot that one, game is gorgeous..