Okami's constant usage as proof that 'graphics technology doesn't matter'

Wicked223

Ask yourself this: If Okami were ported downward to the PS1, would that 'visual aesthetic' still look as good as it does?

AHR

IDK

Wicked223

The answer is, "no, you silly person, of course not".

In fact, another game with zomggreatvisuals, Shadow of the Colossus, is getting an HD reboot, and lookit that, it's ten times better looking than the original

RedEyedAbyss

Similarly, Kotaku claiming BIT.TRIP is the poster franchise for gameplay over graphics despite the visuals being an integral part of the experience. Of course, the only satisfying reviews for the games I found were on Destructoid.

glennmagusharvey

> IDK

MY BFF JILL?

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Okami is not proof that graphics tech doesn't matter.

Classic Mega Man games, Felix the Cat, Super Mario Bros. 3, and Castlevania 3 are proof that graphics tech doesn't matter...that much at least.

Glowsquid

"Classic Mega Man games, Felix the Cat, Super Mario Bros. 3, and
Castlevania 3 are proof that graphics tech doesn't matter...that much at
least."

All of which are bad examples because (except for maybe the first Mega Man, and even there) they were very technically advanced for the time period and the hardware they were on, and in comparison to their contemporaries.

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If Okami were ported downward to the PS1, would that 'visual
aesthetic' still look as good as it does?

I had a similar argument on the TVT forum, and I gave Metal Slug as an example of something that proves that raw graphical muscle can and do sometimes matter, and not just for the browny realistic shooters the fora has such an hard-on for. The other guy responded MS would look the same on the SNES.

The hair-splitting over "graphics" is a very silly argument, anyway.

TheMightyAnonym

Graphics are awesome and nice and pretty and fun and blablabla; however, it is foolish to rely on them to heavily.

For example, compare almost any black&white sci-fi B-flick to the Twilight Zone. The Twilight Zone had its narmy moments, but otherwise did a very great deal with very little. It was good in its day, and its still good now. That said, the Twilight Zone was advanced for its day, but it still stands out nonetheless.

The moral: Graphics are temporary, everything else is forever. (Unless Seinfeld is unfunny gets invoked.)

Bee

Graphics are important insofar as they convey the information and feeling you want them to.  No more, no less.  You may or may not need particularly complex graphics.

That said, photorealism is rarely a lucrative endeavor compared to the immense art development man-hours that it takes to produce relatively mundane assets.  Tools are getting better of course, but ultimately you still need a dude sitting at a computer for hours on end tweaking a mesh or mask/diffuse/spec/bump map, and that time scales directly with the resolution you want it in.

Also, Okami had pretty much the same modeling complexity as everything else, but WITH A TOON SHADER and less time bothering with Z-brush.

┻━┻ ︵ ヽ(`Д´）╯︵ ┻━┻

I'm satisfied with graphics like in the FF1/FF2 PS1 remake openings.

Anything higher is nice too, but that's where I don't think I'd like it much more if it is.

Bee

I'm pretty much locked with either N64 or mid-era PS2 as the "good enough, now focus on gameplay you asshats" standards.

There are exceptions of course.  LA Noire wasn't gonna fly with anything less than what they had, for instance.

glennmagusharvey

> That said, photorealism is rarely a lucrative endeavor compared to the
immense art development man-hours that it takes to produce relatively
mundane assets.

This.

This is why so much of the visual art that we humans have created--from charcoal on paper to oil on canvas to animated features--has stylized depictions rather than photorealism.

Bee

One thing that should be noted is that the artwork and programming are in most cases done by completely different halves of the team, but the art is usually the main bottleneck.

- When the programmers get overworked, you have silly bugs.

- When the artists get overworked, large chunks of content, which may or may not have been rather crucial to the original gameplay design, get cut due to lack of completed assets.  Additionally, what does get completed rolls over to the programmers with little to no time to implement them properly or adjust the placeholder gameplay to how much got cut.  So basically, demanding too much of your artists shoots your entire game in the balls twice.

Also note that unless you're in a really big dev studio, you'll only have a handful of artists.

inkblot

^^ Which makes photorealism more impressive when it's pulled off.

Not every game should look like Wind Waker or No More Heroes, and a game doesn't need to to age well.

What really kills old games is outdated graphic design - logos, menus and fonts. The MDK and Resident Evil covers didn't exactly age like wine.

MousaThe14

If Okami were ported downward to the PS1, would that 'visual aesthetic' still look as good as it does?

I wouldn't know, I played it on the Wii becuase HD whores can screw themselves.

ClockworkUniverse

HD whores? Dude, the original was on the PS2.

GLORIOUSLeader

I think he means that they can screw themselves because Okami was never ported to an HD system.

I agree. 

ClockworkUniverse

Ah.

DYRE

EDIT: Disregard this.

Bee

I'd also like to note that PS2-era is about the kind of resolution that most 3D design software most naturally works at (subsurfing and smoothing are hella easy and all once your GPU can handle it) -- trying to pull off a PS1-era look and carefully tuning it for strict hardware capacity is actually a touch harder than making a moderately detailed model.

MousaThe14

Precisely, Glorious.

I'll never be drawn into a game based on graphical value, graphics are just there to make the aesthetics look good and if I don't like the aesthetic then I won't give two flying fish about the game. All the photo realism and HD stuff is just a waste of money for bother consumer and the developers. Photorealism has their place and people can do what they want wit hit but We haven't exactly found a way to make it quickly and cheaply.

We Need a McPhotorealisticGrFx or something.

Wicked223

All the photo realism and HD stuff is just a waste of money for bother consumer and the developers. 

The giant sales numbers that games like this usually pull in say otherwise.

ClockworkUniverse

Games that didn't bother with it wouldn't need such large sales numbers to turn a profit.

inkblot

^^^ CryEngine 3 comes pretty close.

^ and ^^: Do we have any proof as to whether a game's art style affects development costs? You never hear a dev say that they're going for a stylized look to save money.

If you're not impressed by current gen graphics, there's a good reason: The 360 and PS3 are being stretched, hard. Programmable pixel shaders means we we're only limited by the console's power. HDR, AA, 720p, 3D, real time shadows, motion blur, physics, SSAO, normal mapping everywhere, tesselation, GI, parallax mapping, sandboxes 10 miles across. Many games don't even run in HD.

MousaThe14

I see your response Wicked and raise you INUH's.

Vorpy

and not just for the browny realistic shooters the fora has such an hard-on for.

There are very few people I've seen like the "browny realistic shooters" on TV Tropes, or even here. Most of them bash the everliving shit out of them on a consistent basis whenever FPSes are brought up.

Noimporta

You misinterpreted his post, he said "hard-on" to mean that they always use them as an example of "graphic whore games" in this kind of discussion.

Vorpy

Oh, now it's clear now. Thanks.

ClockworkUniverse

Do we have any proof as to whether a game's art style affects development costs? You never hear a dev say that they're going for a stylized look to save money.

I wasn't talking about art style, but about advanced graphics, which take more time, and thus more money, to make.

glennmagusharvey

> What really kills old games is outdated graphic design - logos, menus
and fonts. The MDK and Resident Evil covers didn't exactly age like
wine.

No, outdated graphics design is merely a matter of taste.  The issue is interfaces.  A clunky menu system using Calibri is worse than an intuitive menu system using FixedSys.

Game designers have gotten MUCH better at designing more intuitive or otherwise better interfaces, and this is due in large part to experience.  On the other hand, gamers have also gotten used to certain interface designs--such as outer button to jump and inner button to fire, for a simple example--that these are now considered effectively industry standards.

inkblot

^ Cant a lot of that be explained by the control interfaces they had to work with?

And yes, graphic design choices are a matter of taste, but the entire field of graphic design is about knowing what the vast majority of people will find astethically pleasing. And if people don't design their graphics like they did in the 90s, then it's because they believe that most people will find them unappealing.

And it's not just logos or fonts. Early to mid 90s games have this..."look" to them. Well, two seperate "looks". It's difficult to describe without pictures, which I can't post on the mobile site.

(Sorry if this doesn't make much sesnse, I haven't slept in 24 hours)

glennmagusharvey

@inkblot: The Philips CD-i has three buttons aside from the d-pad.

The Link: the Faces of Evil and Zelda: the Wand of Gamelon used two buttons to do a crapton of functions (which ended up conflicting with each other frequently), and left the third one unused.