2D Art Appreciation Thread

[Arwin]

Spurred by the Dust discussion, I went googling for game playthroughs of games that I used to love for their art some 20 years back. Here's some of the games I looked up. Do you have any similar things you'd like to share?:

Blood Money (Psygnosis)

The graphics in the second level (start at around 20 minutes in) blew me away back then, and I still think they look good - the amount of detail in the 'borders' is amazing and beautiful and stuff like the jellyfish and, yes, giant crab claws are awesome. One of the games I completed.

Xenon 2 Megablast (Bitmap Brothers)

Again it's the detail in the borders and backgrounds as much as anything else that's amazing. Anywhere is good, but start just over 30 minutes in and you'll also see a nice shift between organic and metallic. Didn't complete this without a cheat - just too hard.

Gods (Bitmap Brothers)

Favorite bits: the dusk sky in the background that's achieved by changing the palette each vbl , the stone Gargoyles coming to life (although in this playthrough), and the mozaic painting iirc of dolphins? you have to restore for a puzzle reward

Populous 1 & 2

Populous 1 blew me away when I first saw it. 20 years later and I still know exactly when and where that happened. Populous 2 blew me away again, but the video doesn't completely show why - the heroes in that game (the basic one that torches all the buildings that nicely burn down, and fire by the way here already spreads from tree to tree to houses ... hello Far Cry 2 , or my favorite Persephone which tempts everyone to follow her and then walks into the sea ...) as well as the disasters (like swamps, cracks in the earth, and my favorite, disease with ill citizens being circled by a vulture - great sound for that vulture as well)

There's many more such as some amazing hand-drawn art in some of the later adventure games, but this will do for now.

 

[AzBat]

[YT]EdNGpUjbPPA[/YT]

1st time I seen a 16 color graphics game on the PC, PCjr that is.

Tommy McClain

 

[ShadowRunner]

Still looks pretty good today!

 

[ShadowRunner]

Going to pick up Muramasa on wii soon. Check it out:

Just wish they would have made it in HD for PSN/XBLA

 

[Dr. Meaty]

The Metal slug games are as impressive today as they were ten tears ago, which can't be said about many things.
Remember "Mickey Mouse and the Castle of Illusion" on Genesis?

 

[obonicus]

Is Another World/Out of this World really a 2D game?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

2D hasn't been defined to exclude it, so yes, it's a 2D game using 2D vectors. Looked superb in its day, with the very best animation.

Project X on Amiga looked glorious. Clever palette use and dithering produce results challenging VGAs 256 colours. YouTube doesn't do it justice.

A hard yet fun game to boot. Other Team 17 games like Alien Breed did similar and always full framerate (50 fps PAL), no screen-tear nor slowdown!. It's a shame they got boxed into doing nothing but Worms for 2 generations!

 

[Arwin]

I didn't like Project X much as much, though it sure seemed impressive at the time. Alien Breed looked great, but also lacked utterly in variation - it's hard to play after you've played something like Gauntlett II.

Rayman 1 (Playstation)

I thought Rayman looked insanely great, and it still does. It's one great example of the kind of beauty that we left behind when we entered the 3D era in terms of art, and I look forward to the day we get there again in full 3D (Ratchet & Clank's opening screen came close). Even looks great on the GBA. And there is so much of it!

Discworld

Voice acting on this is even better than the graphics (Eric Idle doing a tonne of text for the main character), but I just recently showed this to my wife, and it still looks great. Very good licenced game.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I thought of the Lucasarts title like MI2, but I feel they're kinda cheating. There's little technical limitation to scanned paintings, and whatever platform or technical features, a small sprite on a huge painting is going to look good. The limiting factor then is the maximum number of colours on screen of your platform. The majority of games listed are those working within the limits of the technology and having to provide fabulous art alongside some fairly busy gameplay.

Otherwise surely Myst and Dragon's Lair and others would rate very highly?

 

[Arwin]

I thought of the Lucasarts title like MI2, but I feel they're kinda cheating. There's little technical limitation to scanned paintings, and whatever platform or technical features, a small sprite on a huge painting is going to look good. The limiting factor then is the maximum number of colours on screen of your platform. The majority of games listed are those working within the limits of the technology and having to provide fabulous art alongside some fairly busy gameplay.

Otherwise surely Myst and Dragon's Lair and others would rate very highly?

Actually, no I don't think that is cheating. However, I do count in the gameplay a little bit, as well as the animation and graphics integration, and hand-drawn 2D art doesn't mean you appreciate it. Many of the old adventures don't actually look that good. Monkey Island 3 was a very pretty game though here and there (though interspersed with actual animation, but I think I actually liked the in-game graphics better), and it was such a shock to see Monkey Island 4 after that. Yuk.

Monkey Island 2 was impressive at the time, but looking at it today there are few scenes that I still enjoy looking at.

(take the HD version, because this game actually has high resolution)

It's interesting to compare with Discworld above - they're very similar. But I like Discworlds art direction better, even though MI3 is higher res and sometimes more beautiful. It's a good example of how art-bound these 2D graphics are.

 

[obonicus]

2D hasn't been defined to exclude it, so yes, it's a 2D game using 2D vectors. Looked superb in its day, with the very best animation.

But it's more like what we'd call 2.5D. It hardly fits under 'hand-painted', as per the OP's last line. It's great-looking, sure, but this doesn't seem to be 'great-looking old games'. Likewise, I don't think Myst would be right in this thread.

On-topic, Prince of Persia also had incredible animation for its time. And for those who don't know, Jordan Mechner has put up his personal diaries from the days when he was making the game, it's really very interesting. http://jordanmechner.com/old-journals/

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's a good example of how art-bound these 2D graphics are.

the same can be said of 3D though. The 2D hand-drawn art in Uncharted and Uncharted 2 is every bit as good, if not better due to the technical aspects, as any 2D hand-drawn game. So in terms of 2D art appreciation, I think these artists deserve every bit of credit!

Monkey Island 2 was impressive at the time, but looking at it today there are few scenes that I still enjoy looking at.

MI2 isn't so pretty to look at now only because of the limits of the 32 colour scans (if they were even that). The same game rereleased in HD with 24 bit colour scans of the original artwork would look superb. One could also point to lots of old Speccy games that look ghastly now but were impressive at the time. TBH there are very few old games that I can look at and still think they look good, so I can't really trumpet any old 2D art if we're talking about current appreciation instead of when the art first was released. I'm afraid I move with the times and low res, low colour graphics don't please me no more! But then your OP says 'share games you found impressive at the time' and not 'what games have maintained their appeal'.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Castle Crashers, Alien Hominid

 

[DeadlyNinja]

A Boy And His Blob for the Wii. Simply gorgeous.

 

[Arwin]

the same can be said of 3D though. The 2D hand-drawn art in Uncharted and Uncharted 2 is every bit as good, if not better due to the technical aspects, as any 2D hand-drawn game. So in terms of 2D art appreciation, I think these artists deserve every bit of credit!

No, because those graphics didn't really make it into the game! Of course, Uncharted is for me an example of that 3D graphcis are getting there and are starting to look really beautiful. But rarely can you take a screenshot from a 3D game, put that next to the original 2D art, and the 2D art doesn't look better.

MI2 isn't so pretty to look at now only because of the limits of the 32 colour scans (if they were even that). The same game rereleased in HD with 24 bit colour scans of the original artwork would look superb.

I'm not sure if that kind of artwork is available for that game, but yes, a game like that could be amazing. And the current gen consoles could do it, too. That's sort of my point!

One could also point to lots of old Speccy games that look ghastly now but were impressive at the time. TBH there are very few old games that I can look at and still think they look good, so I can't really trumpet any old 2D art if we're talking about current appreciation instead of when the art first was released. I'm afraid I move with the times and low res, low colour graphics don't please me no more!

Well that's just it. I found that some games still look great today, at least I think so.

But then your OP says 'share games you found impressive at the time' and not 'what games have maintained their appeal'.

True, that's totally fair! I got a little carried away by the previous point though, because I didn't expect to find that I still love the way some of these games look, and now turned to focus only on games that I still today think look great.

 

[Scott_Arm]

A Boy And His Blob for the Wii. Simply gorgeous.

I've never seen that before. Looks great.


I also forgot about Braid.

 

[Jack_Tripper]

Pretties 2d games that I can think of (forgive me for not posting links - at work - can't get to the "tube")



Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Earthworm Jim: 1 and 2

R-type - that second level was just creepy cool

Jack

 

[Shifty Geezer]

No, because those graphics didn't really make it into the game!

I meant the hand painted textures. The art-style of Uncharted is all thanks to 2D art.

I think there are a fair few DDL titles that are looking fantastic. The indie title Machinarium is as good as anything out there...

...but of course that's not a console game. Like most of these suggestions! Thread probably needs ot be relocated.

 

[Arwin]

Ok, yes, the 2D textures would do it.

Wow, that's a really beautiful game by the way, thanks for sharing - just hte kind of thing that I wanted to see when this thread was set up. I think 3D games will look as good and have as much personality enentually, but it will take a while. I'm definitely looking forward to it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think 3D games will look as good and have as much personality enentually, but it will take a while. I'm definitely looking forward to it.

Hmmm, I don't know. I thought Wii's Lost Winds was 2D but checking clips, it's 3D, so they certainyl nailed a convincing style. And Valkyria Chronicles shows that next gen cell shading will be good as indistinguishable. But for some stuff like Machinarium, I think the detail will remain beyond the modelling powers of next-gen, and after that we start to hit physical processing limits. I think half-way solutions might work, but I can't forsee a point in time where 3D renderings can create art like this, because the IQ demands will be prohibitive. The best we may get would be MI2 or VC in terms of trying really hard but lacking the finesse needed to really pull it off as good as true 2D art.