Replaying Old Games: The Importance of Graphics

[AD-Stu]

Far, far, far more important than graphics when it comes to retro-gaming is the UI. Cumbersome, clunky or painful UI experiences will derail a happy memory far quicker than any aged graphics could ever hope to.

^ this. Star Control 2 looks pretty crappy these days, but I happily played all the way through it. The original Fallout doesn't look great either, but the UI was at least usable so I got through it.

Any Ultima game before VI, on the other hand, I just can't bring myself to play and it's definitely the interface that drives me away. Don't get me wrong, the graphics are bad, but it's having to hunt for the right obscure key for every single action (for those who didn't know, Ultima IV used EVERY letter on the keyboard for a specific action, and combined that with obscure logic and plenty of trial and error).

Long story short outdated graphics aren't the end of the world for me (though don't get me wrong, given the choice I'll take new and shiny and pretty) but playability can be a huge issue.

 

[Rheinmetall]

I don't have any problem with old games that have bad by today's standards graphics. Maybe this is happening because I never actually stopped playing those games so I'm very familiar with how they look. I can play Tomb Raider 1-4, Resident Evil 1-3, Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Civilization II, Final Fantasy IV-IX Castlevania: Symphony of the Night etc, etc, any time and enjoy the hell out of it. I guess I'm lucky that I'm a nostalgic person who never stops playing old classics. But I understand that I'm not a typical gamer anyway.

 

[Godhead]

Depends on how much nostalgia love I have for it. I still get misty eyed when I replay Dungeon Siege and Morrowind, but I can't get past the graphics for the original Diablo, or the Ultima games.

 

[Fenra]

For me its art direction that trumps graphical fidelity. Sure by todays standards the graphics might be "bad" but if it has a wonderful style and appeal in its art direction, for example Banjo Kazooie on the N64 as one I replay regularily, then thats more important to me

 

[MrHide-Patten]

Ive been trying to play The Tomb Raider HD trilogy, but even my brain is at odds with the graphics. I've been spoilt by current gen too much, coming from an artistic background I'm all for visual flare.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

For me, UI trumps any sort of graphics quality for older games.

I can handle 'dated' graphics, but a poor UI will kill my enjoyment.

 

[Kinitawowi]

Two games I have only just finished are Doom and Doom 2.

We'll not mention the 3rd installment, if that's okay with you....

Excellent gameplay, straight forward controls and not top of the range graphics. But, it suited it perfectly. I enjoyed putting a bullet through a demons skull, without a fountain of red blood cascading over my screen, as Gears of War would have put it.

This times a million. I've said it a few times to several people; the* reason that a lot of modern FPS gameplay sucks is that the graphics have gotten so good that you're almost forced down the line of photorealistic humans for enemies. Blocky sprite demons leave room for the imagination to fill in the gaps.

As for the original topic... well, when I first got into gaming, this was the height of graphical technology.

(That screenshot also shows a perfect address to the gender in gaming issue. Even in 1983 we were more progressive than we thought.)

Then a few years later came this; my favourite game of all time, partly because it was the first game to truly mesh great graphics with great gameplay.

In other words, I'm really not that arsed about old-style graphics and if anything they only add to the retro charm. Yes, modern remakes that smooth them out can be nice:

but it should be the art style that determines the game, not the other way around. That's how you make a game timeless.

 

[RJ Dalton]

I still play Deus Ex and the original two Thief games frequently. The graphics on them don't bother me at all. I might still play a couple of my old NES games if I still had a working NES.
Graphics don't matter much.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

I think it depends on the intention of the old school game. If their intention was not to have an art style but to "emulate reality", it will have aged very quickly and horribly. I'm sure in 10 years we'll be looking at the Tomb Raider reboot and mention how uncanny the animations are and how janky the movements feel. Having an art style/direction is important, it's why Chrono Trigger is still my favorite game of all time. It is still beautiful, and shouldn't ever look "old", especially with all these "retro" indie games coming out.

But yeah, fucked up control schemes/UI is a way worse issue. If I'm playing a game more than 10 years old that I never played before, it's very difficult for me to be arsed to continue if I need to read a 100 page manual and take the 2 week correspondence course just to get character movement down pat. That only seems to apply to PC games, though.

I've been playing Resident Evil 1-6 since that awesome PSN sale, and I've been having a blast playing through 1-3. After a while, I'm not thinking about the graphics, because I shouldn't be. I should be focused on my inventory, the enemies, how much ammo I have left, and whether it's worth using that ink ribbon. I really wouldn't care if games looked like that again, and I spend a lot on graphics cards. It would save publishers money, cause an explosion in creativity, and force developers to think about interesting art directions again. At least we have the indie scene/Kickstarter : )

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

I will admit that I let out the odd chuckle whenever I replay an old FPS and all the models look like Kryten from Red Dwarf, but in general I've never found the lower resolution of an older game really off putting.

To be perfectly honest, I've found that some older games have art styles that are still among the most evocative today. It's one of most basic rule of art: the less elements competing for your attention, the more you'll be impressed by the areas the artist has put the most effort into.

 

[skywolfblue]

I like modern graphics, I find the older low poly stuff hard to look at.

World of Warcraft is about the only game that I think has really withstood the test of time with regards to art. Everything else I'm having a hard time enjoying when it makes my eyes hurt so bad.

 

[kypsilon]

I try every now and then to go back to an older game when I get bored. 'Hey, that one was awesome!'
...aaaannnd then the graphics hit takes place. *sigh*

Although, NES/SNES/Genesis games aren't put under that graphics scrutiny. Must be a nostalgia thing.

 

[Niccolo]

There's a difference between "old" graphics and "bad" graphics, I think. A game can be dated as hell, but the graphics still work fine (provided you don't play on a massive 1920x1080 screen in fullscreen). Starcraft and Diablo 2 are good examples: they don't exactly look fantastic, but their old graphics work - and so they're still good fun to play. The artists stayed within the limitations of the time.

Fallout 3 and NV, on the other hand... I went back and played recently... Gorgeous landscapes, but I got insanely freaked out by the dead cataract eyes everybody's sporting. They tripped and fell squarely into the uncanny valley.

I guess for me it's a case of how well the graphics work. If they attempt to stab my eyeballs, no. Otherwise...

 

[BreakfastMan]

As someone who plays a hell of a lot of old games, I generally don't have a problem with old graphics. Now, there is a statute of limitations on that, as I generally find it hard to enjoy the visuals of games that came out before 1990 or the visuals of super-early 3D games (think original starfox, not starfox 64), but I generally do better with old graphics than many others.

 

[locoartero]

Ehhhh whatever, if the game bothered to come up with a unique artstyle then age is practically a non-issue. Okami anyone?

I mean look at BlazBlue. That is never going to get dated. Ever.

I'm going through System Shock 2 for the first time and fuck it is still scary. You know, proper atmosphere building and shit? Kinda important.


And jump scares STILL WORK with all the shit low res graphics. I had to turn Hardware Acceleration off though because I had no audio at all otherwise. (good port, good port) So that'll make it look more like arse. Literally hit the first enemies then quit. Totes the sort of game you play in short bursts. I accidentally picked the starting Psi path as well, I hear wrong builds can fuck you over later on and I have no interest in Psi crap. Just give me a gun.

I SWEAR Persona 4: The Golden looks worse than Persona 4 on the PS2 from the screenshots i've seen. Tell me they didn't do a Silent Hill 2 and remove all the fog? That's the twatting point you noob. Oh and I hear they replaced Pursuing My True Self with some new crap as the opening. From bad to worse I tell you...

I doubt i'll ever be this much of a purist about anything else but you don't NEED to add anything to it. It's perfectly fine as it stands. No super evil betrayal ending that ruins the entire point of the game good job Atlus you tards or anything. Yes you don't NEED to take it but it doesn't NEED to be in the game in the first place.

You know I seriously think Persona 4 is pretty much perfect in every way right? Because it is. I thought it through and everything!

Fuck it, i'll get a Vita with my birthday money and see if this shit is any good or if i'm right in my assumption that adding more shit for its own sake is not necessarily a good thing. FUCKING BETRAYAL ENDING MAN! I'm annoyed that's even a thing. What is this? SMT Nocturne?

Damn right! I've been replaying P2: ED and P3: FES since they are on PSN as classics. Also, WHERE THE FUCK ARE P1 (Revelations) , P2:IS and P4 as classics?
I'm pretty sure they are not releasing them to force feed us the handhled remakes. Same with the original Soul Hackers. I don't want to buy a 3ds, but SH, Myst and the new Fire Emblem might make me. But, yeah, fuck SMT for forcing handhelds on us. At this point, I'm beggining to think we only got FES last year because P3P is basically a visual novel with some dungeon crawling. And they did not even desing new cinematics, they just took screenshots... FMC is stuck in that crappy port. Too bad. Also, as you're on it, SMT Team, FREE MINATO ALREADY!

 

[porous_shield]

I've spent my time playing DOS and NES games so the graphics from the era of gaming doesn't bother me. N64 graphics and ps1 era graphics do bother me though, games like Cruisin USA, Golden Eye, or Donkey Kong I've always hated the look of.

I also hate the look of The Longest Journey and even when it came out I thought it was a very ugly game. I dislike a lot of games from around the time it was produced.

If a game is ugly I'm far less likely to play it than a game that still looks nice but it's not the tipping point with me and it would have to have some other severe knocks against it for me not to play it.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Graphics are no big deal, unless they're truly eye searing or the game is one that leaned heavily on the quality of its visuals and has little to offer in the game play department.

Far, far, far more important than graphics when it comes to retro-gaming is the UI. Cumbersome, clunky or painful UI experiences will derail a happy memory far quicker than any aged graphics could ever hope to. It's part of the reason I won't hesitate to recommend, say, Planescape Torment to someone, but I won't recommend Ultima IV. Not because the latter isn't an excellent game and important RPG, but because Planescape won't provoke 1/10th of the UI agony.

Agreed. I tried playing Bladur's Gate Enhanced Edition on Steam and I just couldn't do it and it had nothing to do with graphics. The game plays like ass and had me wondering why the hell it was considered a classic.

 

[SageRuffin]

Never mind the graphics; does the gameplay hold up after X amount of years?

Case in point: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The graphics can look pretty stiff in some places. Whatever. The gameplay, however, hasn't aged well at all. I tried to play it recently and I couldn't get off the Endar Spire without falling asleep.

So yeah. Fuck graphics. I'm all about the gameplay.

 

[Gatx]

I can't stand PS1/N64 era games (and early 3D games in general), especially because they didn't really perfect analog control schemes so you still had quite a few games with tank movement. PS2 is more or less the sweet spot for me, even more so because handhelds are still rolling with graphics that look like they're from era.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Graphics need to be good enough that their shittiness does not distract from the game. This means that better gameplay or a unique art style that isn't trying to be realistic (as far as I'm concerned, the ones that age the worst are the ones trying to imitate reality) can go some way towards negating their effect. Monster Hunter on the PSP had fairly bad textures, but I was too busy killing velociprey and other things to care. The only games that tend to turn me right off are the early 3D ones, and although I'm not a fan of pixel art most of the time, I tend not to have much of a problem with old 2D games.