Post games that you thought had an ugly or very wierd art style but that you actually enjoyed playing
I will start with Comander Keen, a decent PC platformer but with a horrible color palette.
>>2858121
>ugly visual style
Most Genesis games, like Strider. I know the system has less colors than the SNES, but even games on the NES/SMS managed to look good. Hell, Beyond Oasis is a beautiful game. With it's bright cartoony art-style, it kinda was Wind Waker way before Wind Waker. But most Genesis games still managed to look like shit. Rather sad actually.
>>2858187
I think its not really a matter of how many colors are available but how you use the color palette
Kolibri and Ranger-X looked amazing on the MegaDrive, although to be fair Kolibri is using 32X
>>2858121
I don't find 8-bit Castlevanias to be very visually appealing (mostly trying to depict atosphere that they just didn't have the colour to depict), though I think the games are fantastic. I guess I'd agree with your assessment of Commander Keen's choice of colours too.
FYI for those in the thread, iD didn't have an official sprite artist until late in Keen 3's development. So the art for 1 and 2 (and, hell, much of 3 except a grand total of one or two sprites) is being done entirely by the other designers.
>>2858121
I'm not sure anymore how the scrolling etc. was done in Keen, but it might be possible that this might be a reason for the color choice since they did a lot of tricks to do it.
Also i can guess, that specific colors are easier to port for other platforms(at least to keep it in mind) because you can be sure that those are possible there too without doing a drastic graphic change which would also result in more work.
>>2858218
>>2858307
Keen simply uses EGA, with a fixed 16 color CGA palette
>>2858121
A lot of early EA games. Skate Or Die! in particular was ugly as fuck.
M.U.L.E. is another one.
Dangerous Dave is ugly but I like it.
>>2858121
>>2858121
I've never liked ascii graphics, but Rogue and roguelikes are many of my favorite games. It also doesn't help that virtually every tile set that gets made is ugly as fuck as well. They're still some of the most fun games around though so it doesn't really matter.
>>2858390
I can't into rogues visuals, as the room + tunnel setup is just too artificial for me. Other roguelikes though? Great stuff. I can treat the ascii map as a shorthand to describe the surroundings, and basically play a text based action rpg.
Tilesets don't help for roguelikes, because they tear down this abstraction, trying to elevate the simple room "descriptions" into something specific. And that something specific invariably sucks, because tile sets are limited. See a 3x8 hallway in ascii? It might be a cave, a grand hall, a bridge or something else, you can let your creativity roam and fill the scene with life. Add a tileset, and it's a bunch of generic floor tiles, and looks like shit.
>>2858397
I do get where you're coming from. I've had this disagreement with many other roguelike players. I just disagree. I'm super visual and always prefer a nice tileset if it exists. I'm not even crazy about Brogue, even though what it does is impressive. Lack of one certainly doesn't keep me from playing a game, but if I had my way I'd make them all look like Shiren.
Powder is one of my favorites though and despite it's tileset not being great, I do find it decently cute.
>>2858413
To each their own. I think it really just depends on how you perceive the game. It seems like you're treating the ascii straight up as tiles, as graphics, and then I'd fully agree, higher quality tiles actually improve the visuals, from terrible/mediocre to bearable/good.
I'm kind of coming from the other end. Like, imagine the map is entirely gone, and all you get are IF style descriptions of "you enter a room", "you see a dragon", and so on. You can add a lot of detail to these descriptions, but it gets ridiculously complex very fast. So the alternative approach is to eliminate all descriptions of surroundings (except for inspections) and instead provide a minimal overview; an image says a thousand words and all that). For this approach though, it's almost crucial that the visuals blend in with the "log", the real narrative. That's where the story is being told.
So, yeah, it is just a matter of direction you're looking at. Both directions are entirely valid, and produce good and expressive games. In the end it's a win for both of us.
>>2858434
>from terrible/mediocre to bearable/good
I should clarify, that's when you add a tileset to an ASCII-based game. The improvements are marginal, because they rely on the underlying ASCII map, which lacks a lot of info. Of course a game that's from the ground up made with full graphics, like Shiren, is in a class of its own, and I'd be a fool to call it bearable/good visuals, it's well beyond that.
>>2858434
Yeah we're just coming at it from different angles. I totally get your preference.
>That's where the story is being told.
This I totally agree with, and why these games are some of my favorite. More than just about any other genre it really feels like a story builds up through your actions.
>>2858397
>Tilesets don't help for roguelikes, because they tear down this abstraction, trying to elevate the simple room "descriptions" into something specific.
Every video game is an abstraction.
>>2858413
I'm visual too, I don't mean super fancy graphics, even things like pic related are already visually appealing enough to me.
>>2858121
I might get some flak for saying this but I feel like a lot ofEuropeangames fit this description like a glove.
>>2858187
>Most Genesis games, like Strider
Strider looked like ass even in arcades.
You're also using an early SEGA Genesis game as an example of the overall library. There were a shit ton of ugly as fuck NES and SMS games.
