What (aesthetically) is the most beautiful game you've ever played?

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Aesthetically pleasing? Okami.

When taking character design, art style, animations, stylised combat systems, soundtrack ... Okami is number 1 in my books.

I mean, everything in that game looked bad ass. When you run, grass and pollen spring up across your footfalls ... bright, colourful vistas ... vivid, bleak, cursed lands .... and the soundtrack is amazing. It might be that I just like Zelda-esque games, and coupled with Okami's graphics I just found it wonderful. Objectively, when you take all its components, I think Okami was the most aesthetically pleasing game I have ever played.

Like when I weigh up just how much I feel the entire package came together.

 

[saluraropicrusa]

Kentucky Route Zero.
Simple graphics, gorgeous, dreamy aesthetic.

Abbbbzzzuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

shits tight

No mention of Journey yet? It was the first one that sprang to my mind.

Spoiler

all of these (so happy to see someone else mention KRZ!! i adore that game), as well as Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, any 3d Zelda game (plus Link Between Worlds), Skyrim and Fallout 4 mainly because i love the settings/world, the Uncharted games for their gorgeous set-pieces... i'll leave it at that because i could keep going. i love games with really strong visual styles and solid art direction.

 

[Zen Bard]

Really loved the aesthetic of Darksiders II.

The style was somewhat reminiscent of World of Warcraft, but somehow felt much grander and more epic.

The character designs were weirdly cartoonish but beautiful. And the color palette for all the different worlds was really lush and vibrant.

There were times I almost wanted to avoid combat so I could just keep exploring.

But when you're playing as Death, killin's sort of what you do...

 

[FalloutJack]

Persona 5 is just gorgeous. Even the basic menus are sylish and themed around the story.


Okami is my runner up, absolutely beautiful as well.

Well, since I don't have P5 yet - Guessing you got it imported. - I'll have to be the one to say Shadow of the Colossus.

 

[The Madman]

I absolutely love the art style for Banner Saga, that sort of 'painting in motion' style almost never fails to impress me.


In a similar vein, Transistor as well. So beautiful.


Otherwise, hmm... yeah, kinda gotta agree with those saying World of Warcraft as well. I haven't played the game in quite some time but every time I do decide to pick it back up again, one thing that always consistently impresses me are the beautiful visuals Blizzard manage to crank out of that creaky old game engine of theirs. The environments in particular are often just downright gorgeous.

 

[mojoismydog77]

My pick would have to be Journey with its beautiful desert and snow scenes. Its art style is timeless and no matter how many playthroughs I play I always find some new marvel.

 

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

The original Mirror's Edge is gorgeously designed. Every area is a contemporary art piece waiting to be captured.

And this is from 2008. Art design goes a looong way.

Spoiler

 

[Nazulu]

I don't know, but one of my favourites is Super Metroids style, because it perfectly gets the elegance of making it look dark and mysterious with great colour and lighting/shadow work. Some of it feels really fucking mean too, like in the aggressive 90's way, something I feel that is mostly lost with art these days.

 

[distortedreality]

Definitely Mirrors Edge. Has been one of the first games I install on a new rig since it launched, and is still stunning.

Transistor gets a thumbs up as well. Beautifully designed game.

 

[Guffe]

I always thought LoTRO (Lord of The Rings Online) had some of the most beautiful environments around

Xenoblade X

There we go, got ninjad on the first page within 10 posts on both games I was going to name

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

I came into this thread with no answers prepared. But now I have so many, it's impossible to pick just one...so fuck it... I'm gonna list all the goodies in any order! Thanks for reminding of these beautiful artistic endeavours!

Transistor (And Bastion, but transistor definitely looks and sounds more appealing personally)

Bioshock (and infinity, perhaps Infinity more so. Haven't decided.)

Trine 2 (haven't played 3, must complete this one first.)

Witcher 3 (ooh that DLC looks more enticing everyday!)

Abzu (and I guess journey, but abzu is superior aesthetically due to the inherent beauty of underwater journey)

Shadow Warrior

Dying Light (enhanced edition, why not)

Inside

Max Payne 3 (really, it had a great art direction)

Dust: an Elysian tail

Okami

Unravel (an underappreciated gem, due to not mechanically innovating. But beautiful in every way).

Uncharted 4...really had me stare long into their landscapes, they do very much show an appreciation of enchanting views while travelling that I have recently observed many don't seem to understand. Curious.

(It's kinda weird maybe, but i remember being impressed by the splinter cell series's art direction, so a mention is required).


Ok...Time to start cheating...

Child of Eden (and Rez I guess)

Flower

Flow

Amplitude

Entwined

Zelda...all the Zeldas...and Marios...ok, Nintendo in general. Damnit, this is difficult.

 

[meiam]

Well all the one I wanted to mention already have been (journey, odin sphere, and so on) so I'll go with legend of mana, I'd love if they would rerelease it on PC, they probably have higher res of those background somewhere. It also has amazing soundtrack, it's a shame about the lackluster gameplay.

I'll throw in ZOE2 while I'm at it.

 

[Armadox]

There are plenty of games that has caused me pause for the visual aesthetics, and I could spend an hour listing scenes and small details of lovingly crafted worlds and perfectly established shots (or like.. explaining the entirety of Shadow of the Colossus). But for raw aesthetic as represented by mechanics (which is fundamentally more important) the one game that stopped me in my tracks was the first time I truly understood Minecraft.

Not just played it, I had been fiddling around with it for probably an hour before hand, punching trees and digging up dirt. No this happened later, when I was creating an anvil and stopped and looked over my forest location and in a sudden instance got it. This in front of me was an endless world, and everything had a purpose.

That moment when you literally stop seeing the forest for the trees and notice the individual blocks around you. Every inch of this game is important and can be used to build something amazing. That moment when you stop seeing the mundane that is a forest biome or the desert, and start seeing ancient cathedrals, elegant glass bridges and huge sprawling cities.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

There are some really damn good looking games on here but for me, it's the original Wind Waker on the gamecube. It absolutely still holds up today, just like Okami and the only reason I can think of for Nintendo to remake it on the Wii U is so it can be played on modern consoles...then again, they're porting Wii and N64 games over digitally...

Anyway, what I really like about Wind Waker is how varied the world can be as you travel from island to island. There's a sense of vastness that I just didn't feel in any other variation of Hyrule. Outside of the world and islands though, I think the boss monsters haven't looked better. Gohma was turned into an iron centipede, Ganon was turned into Kevin Smith, etc.

Other than that, I really liked;

3D Dot Game Hero
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy Mobilis (it LOOKED great)
Final Fantasy XIII
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Little Big Planet
Okami
Puppeteer

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Okami by default. Also every game that comes out of Vanillaware Ltd (Odin Sphere, Grim Grimoire, Dragon's Crown) is a beauty.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Aesthetically? probably The Last Blade 2 its just a work of beauty. Okami is also worth another mention and while not up there for me with those I did often stop and admire the scenery in Xenoblade Chronicles.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Since Okami was taken then I go with Hyper Light Drifter! I loved me some pixel arts!

 

[gorfias]

Tied for my top position are Contrast and BioShock. The two bear more than a passing resemblance to one another, but Contrast takes a sultry approach to the art deco style whereas BioShock was delightfully twisted.

I give the nod to Bioshock 2. Most reviewers agreed that its technical graphic quality lagged behind part 1 but by 2, Rapture was over-grown with beautiful coral. The art direction, IMHO, was slightly better.

 

[Myria]

Having spent some time in the alpha this weekend, I really have to add For Honor to the list.

Not my kind of game and I doubt I'll bother picking it up when it releases, but it really does look good. Everything from the environments to the character models to the animations are quite impressive.

 

[Foolery]

Final Fantasy XIV online is quite pretty. So is Guild Wars 2 for that matter, they both have great art-styles.