Why is it that some NES games look like shit with cringeworthy palette choices , while others look nearly 16-bit?
bad devs/good devs
>>3056742
It takes skill and experience to get the most out of old systems. That's a big reason why I love retro hardware so much.
For instance, the NES could only display in an 8x8 pixel block 4 colors, and the first one was always transparent. If you look at Mega Man's face in that picture, you'll see it has white, black, blue, and light blue; 4 colors, but really 5 colors because the transparent color must be present. To achieve this, the devs simply layered a few sprites on top of each other. This seems obvious now, but when you sit down and try to come up with trickery to get the most out of your system, these kinds of things are innovations.
-The system had a long lifespan, so advancements were made in terms of NES game technology (like new mappers... I'm not knowledgeable about NES development so hopefully someone else can go into detail) and those interested in bettering their craft studied the works of others and improved.
-Game artists had different levels of skill. Some were probably good artists in general, game or otherwise, others were not as skilled. Some knew how to take advantage of a limited palette by making good color choices within the limits and how to make clear graphics out of pixels, others had no clue.
-Some probably cared about their work, others probably put in the bare minimum effort to get a (mostly) playable game out the door as quickly as possible.
But those games actually look nice, anon.
Pic is what a lot of games looked like before NES.
SMB3 is just ugly but I guess it was a design choice. I like the aesthetics of SMB1 much more because they aged much better.
why is shadow in a NES game
>>3057471
tiny toons copied a lot of characters. they also have dart vaider
>>3056742
Well for the top right, I think for big bosses they made the boss part of the background rather than a sprite(s). That's why a lot of big bosses on NES games have black backgrounds.
>>3057508
Still looks better. That kind of boss detail came for Nintendo with SMW. I guess Nintendo designers never were cutting edge or ahead of their time. Just look at the wii or wii u. They only wowed me once in my life with n64 Mario and zelda.
Mappers
>>3056742
Why do some indie games look like shit while others look nearly professional?
>>3060027
did you know that indie is not one developer, but actually a union of developers?
>>3057483
>copied
>Shadow
>NES game
You funny.
And OP, you should take a look at the release dates for those games.
i always thought it was odd that earlier nes games looked better than later ones. stuff like blaster master, bionic commando and even super mario brothers makes amazing use of color and detailed sprites while later shit like kirby makes everything look so bland and pastel colored and washed out. I think when 16 bit came along the developers just quit giving a crap about trying to push the NES and just said "pssshhh it's 8 bit, that's all we can do."
>>3056742
Why would NES games make you feel cringe?
Damn you must be 12.
>>3056742
Later nes games had various hardware addona (like snes's fx chip but a lot more of them) to handle stuff graphics and sound that would have been impossible on the original hardware
>>3057514
>looks is only about pushing limits
>more details is always better
get a load of this faggot
>>3057464
>SMB3 is just ugly
Are you on crack?
>>3060128
>>3060328
where is the lie. i agree with him. detail is better. of course. you play atari or what?
>>3060535
compare it to ninja gaiden then talk to me again.
>>3056742
Hell yeah, Kickmaster! Now that was an amusing game.
>>3060546
Well, he's not entirely wrong. A large part of what makes NES games 'colorful' has to do with color contrast, and complementary colors. Like Ninja Gaiden 3, you have the neon pink woods, the bright green grass, and the red bushes. Then in Mario 3, you have orange backgrounds, orange Mario, orange turtle, some white, and green.
The PPU has a limitation whereby each block of four tiles must share colors unless an MMC5 is used in which case it's every two tiles.
>>3056742
Game in top right? Hear about it sometimes but always forget the title, heard it's like castlevania but 10x as difficult.
>>3061000
That'd be that Kickmaster I called "hell yeah" for. Yeah, that's actually the title. And delivers in spades.
>>3060587
Underrated post
>>3060917
yeah you said it better than me in my previous post. it's more to do with the designers use of colors more than anything else.
>>3060587
God damn are N64 games fucking hideous. Even the "good" ones like OoT and Star Fox 64. Ugly as sin. Bubsy 3D's just incompetent, and the only thing about that Crash screenshot that bothers me is how extreme the contrast is between Crash and the environment. That orange could have been pulled back a bit.
>>3056778
I think OP posted those as good examples, covering a range of different styles. Even that Mega Man screenshot looks alright, given how early it appeared in the NES's lifespan. It amazes me that they nailed Mega Man's sprite starting with the first game. They didn't change a thing over all those games, just adding new frames for special animations.
>>3061693
>I think OP posted those as good examples
top row is good examples, bottom row is bad examples
>>3061712
OP must really hate blue skies.
>>3061715
you mean teal skies?
that's not blue. it's almost green
>>3061751
Yeah sure why not.
>>3061712
Yeah what the hell, is Tiny Toons Adventure supposed to be ugly?! It's from 1991 (IIRC), go look games released before 1992 and you won't find many with graphics of that quality.
OP must like his graphics grimdark and edgy, in which case Batman would be a great example for the top raw because that's from 1989, unmatched for that period.
>>3061751
the NES palette is kind of limited. That anon was strawmanning though.
>>3061769
It's ugly in its palette choice. It's not ugly in its sprite work within its palette choice.
>>3061770
Well then, the main difference between both raws, is that the games at the top are trying to be "mature action games", while the bottom row are "kids platformers".
I think that's where OP's answer lies imo.
>>3061774
there's more to it, really. Take Megaman as example. Not sure how much he's aimed at kids, harsh difficulty and all that. But that's secondary. In that screenshot sky and ground share a palette, and the tile work on the ground introduces odd contrasts, that are really harsh on the eyes, make it difficult to see what's going on.
Take Mario as example. Another anon in the thread mentioned already, it's a very tiny pastell subset of the NES palette, and heavily reused, with the ground, enemy, action block and mario all sharing the same orange tint.
Tiny Toons looks like a ROM hack of Mario, almost, borrowing heavily in style and palette.
That is genuinely bad palette choice, and has nothing to do with mature vs. kids. When you got to deal with a Palette as tiny as the NES palette, you can't just take the colors you want, you got to work with contrasts and perception. Trees aren't light pink too often, yet they are in that one screen. It's for the tone, not realism. The bottom palettes are more naive, where the devs just picked the color they wanted to see, disregarding the whole picture.
>>3056742
>Why is it that some NES games look like shit with cringeworthy palette choices , while others look nearly 16-bit?
Only some companies, like Natsume, understood limited palettes.
>>3061790
The colours used in the bottom row feel a lot more cartoonish to me, hence why I say "aimed at kids" versus the top row.
I think they knew what they were doing and picked those more pastel, cartoonish colours on purpose. As for the orange and blue, you got the classic contrast right there everyone knows about, which makes it easy to separate the background with the playing area; unlike Ninja Gaiden at the top, or even Kickmaster, where it's harder to indentify the playing area from a quick glance. It's a practical choice.
MM1 though, that's just terrible.
>>3061804
i hate orange and teal. it destroyed the movie industry.
>>3061804
>pastel, cartoonish
Cartoons are more known for vibrant palettes. And again, limitting yourself to one corner of the palette, just takes away a lot of options to introduce contrast. You said yourself, you're then stuck with the "classic" orange-cyan contrast. It looks generic and uninspired
>It's a practical choice.
I'd still argue it was a superficial or careless choice, instead of putting some actual thought into working with the system. We might just stay in disagreement there though.
>>3061812
ugh i hated that game
>>3061812
>I'd still argue it was a superficial or careless choice, instead of putting some actual thought into working with the system.
And I think it's a lot more thoughtout than you think. When you look at SMB3, the disparate contrasts makes it easy to identify the playing areas straight away, so you know instantly where you can jump and run, it goes hand in hand with gameplay.
Ninja Gaiden and Kickmaster? Yeah, it looks cool, thought has been put into the colours so they go hand in hand to create a specific atmosphere, but it's more of a mess for gameplay. In NG, the green ground the character stands on blends with the foliage in the background. And what the red-brownish part below? Is that mud, a ground I can walk onto? Or water that will kill me? Same thing with Kickmaster, what is the boss the green ground the boss is standing on? Another gameplay layer I can jump onto to be on the same level as her ?
NG and KS have colour choices which serves atmosphere. In SMB3 it serves gameplay.
>>3061832
I posted Duck Tales in part to show you that color and recognizing things are not mutually exclusive
>>3061832
That proves that they are made for kids and simplicity. Modern games follow that pattern. Can you see the ground in the new tomb raider where exactly you can walk on. No it's all grass, it's called immersion. i count immersion as an extra point not as a negative.
>>3061842
Yeah, DT and NG share the same technic of using the light green for playing ground and the dark green for background.
Except it's not as evident in NG because both the background and playing areas have contrast, and that brown layer too looks light at the top.
Also I forgot to mention in my previous post how the characters blends in with the background...
Play DT and NG on a small CRT screen and at a first glance, it will not be as evident that there is a hole in NG on the left of the screen, and that you can interact with that green trunk in DT.
You'll never have this kind of issues with SMB3.
>>3061819
don't reply to me again etc
>>3062073
why?
SAY IT WITH ME AMERIKEKS
MORE DETAILED DOES NOT MEAN BETTER
>>3062659
that's probably 2nd gener. ew
>>3062659
BUT MOST OF THE TIME IT IS
>>3060035
anon don't tell lies.
Indie is a 35 year old man who lives in his mothers basement making thousands of shitty games daily, occasionally spitting out a few good ones.
"SMB3 upon release was criticized for its outdated visuals by 1990 standards."
Ok it doesn't look as good as Strider or some state-of-the-art platformer of that time, but the graphics are fine for the needs of the game.
>>3062694
Nintendo main game series graphics always looked outdated compared to competition - except in the N64 era.
>>3062694
Why would anyone hold a 1988 game to 1990 standards?
same way the snes did, extra goodies in the carts.
>>3062774
Nintendo probably didn't have the best graphics artists. At least, graphics never seem to be something they prioritized.
>>3062874
Which why they are were they are now. Lost the console war numerous times. Only dominance in handheld.
>>3062694
>"SMB3 upon release was criticized for its outdated visuals by 1990 standards."
...said no one ever.
>>3056742
The above line use black as the base color, and then fill the screen in when needed with other colors. It gives it more shading and more depth to the images. It's just a smarter use of the limited color palette.
>>3063309
"Criticism focused on particular aspects of the game. Miller considered the inability to save progress a drawback, since gamers will have to play the entire game in one sitting if they wish to complete it.[11] Rignall described the audio and visuals as being outdated in comparison to games on the Sega Genesis system.[9] The game's difficulty was also criticized by some critics."
>>3063431
All nintendo main series are refered. This rule of ugly graphics still applies today @Wii and @Wii U. Only good main series graphics were on N64 and DKC
>unironically liking 16bit prerendered muddy graphics
ISHYGDDT because devs pretty much gave up on aesthetics around that time.
>>3063464
i personally don't like it. i was just referring to the times where nintendo main series games actually competed with other system graphics wise and that was only the case with n64 and games like DKC. everything else was always and still is graphically just average.
>>3063437
>comparing the graphics of the NES to the Genesis.
kek.
>>3063535
I can think of NES games like Bad Dudes and Ninja Gaiden that looked way better than SMB3.
>>3063535
SNES wasn't out yet. I don't think its uncouth to compare two flagship systems from major manufacturers. Game.com can be compared against game gear GBC and neo pocket can't it? Just because it was outgunned and outclassed doesn't mean it couldn't be objectively compared to its competitors.
>>3063542
I agree. Ninja Gaiden trilogy looks graphically more like on the level of Super Mario World.
And Zelda Wii U looks like a 2006 PS3 game with cell shading.
>>3063552
>>3063542
didn't ninja gaiden and bad dudes have massive amounts of lag though? I remember the main reason I had so much trouble with ninja gaiden is the framerate would slow down to 10 fps if too much shit was happening or even if just a regular amount of shit was happening.
Of course you won't see this in emulation because any PC will be thousands of times more powerful than the NES.
I'm not even trying to argue that smb3 was going for fps either, as certain levels of smb3 (tank/airship) would have massive amounts of lag at certain points. But that was only when a large amount of crap got on screen, whereas ninja gaiden barely ever had more than one enemy sprite.
SMB3 was at a 1986 graphical level in 1990. If you recall, they actually tweaked Dragon Quest 1's graphics for the US release because it came out three years after the original Famicom version and they wanted it to look more up-to-date.
>>3063562
>didn't ninja gaiden and bad dudes have massive amounts of lag though?
Bad Dudes has no lag that I'm aware of and I have played it on a real NES, not emulation. Also more detailed backgrounds doesn't slow down the CPU. You'd have to be retarded to think that.
>>3063562
no actually the opposite. ninja gaiden had no lag compared to most games with many enemies on the screen. i was impressed. i dont know about bad dudes, never played that.
>>3063579
SMB3 is ugly
>>3063579
Some games do have slowdown especially most Nintendo first party titles. It actually depends on how they're programmed. Nintendo seemed to like putting all of the code in the NMI thread while others would split the music and code between the main CPU thread and the IRQ thread.
>>3061790
>>3061812
pretty harsh with megaman 1 there.
stages are meant to be thematic hence the color choices. the sky also changes colors on some screens.
>>3063681
While true, LOZ does also put all the game code in the NMI loop while Bad Dudes I assume splits everything between the main and NMI/IRQ loop. But you'd have to ask a Famicom hacking expert about that.
>>3063680
I've never played the game, and other stages might do better, and I made no statement about the quality of it as a game. The one screenshot shown in OPs pic though, is really bad in terms of colors and tile designs
>>3063676
>>3063683
Can you elaborate a bit on it from a technical viewpoint? I suspect NMI/IRQ loop refers to code executing by the vblank interrupt. How is the "main loop" controlled? Is it just executed whenever the interrupt handler returns control? And what are its limitations in terms of access and available CPU time?
>>3063693
SMB and LOZ have slowed animation and also music when there's a lot of action on screen. Many games do not have this problem because they have split code - the NMI is triggered every VBLANK, hence 60 times per second. This means that if the music code is in the NMI and the game logic in the main thread, that the CPU will automatically stop and execute the music code 60 times every second. If the entire code loop is all in the NMI, then it's having to process the game logic in addition to playing music which causes slowdown. Famicom coding is also extremely timing-sensitive; all NMI routines must use 80 or fewer clock cycles which is how long the VBLANK lasts. In addition, you cannot access the PPU except during the VBLANK which again must occur in this 80 cycle window.
The IRQ on the Famicom is not normally triggered by anything on the main system board, however add-on peripherals and cartridge mappers may use it. In particular, the MMC3 uses the IRQ to bank switch tile sets for animated tiles.
>>3063579
have y<ou ever emulated? most slow downs are hardcoded if that makes sense at dont go away e.g. kirby
>>3063707
ok, so a sane setup would be to have 80 cycles of video stuff + extra sitting in the NMI handler, and the remainder of the code, especially non-video, in the main loop (which probably should be triggered by the end of the NMI handler, to sync to frames). How occupied is the CPU during screen redraw? (during the opposite of vblank, so to speak). Can you use it fully, or is screen rendering using it partially?
>>3063721
Screen rendering doesn't use the CPU at all; the PPU is handling all of that. This is the period where game logic is processed such as checking for sprite collisions and updating score counters and whatnot.
>>3063726
cool to know. Then yeah, it definitely makes sense to have at least some logic, if not most of it, on the main loop. The NMI handler is way too short, and you're effectively "idling" for the majority of the time of a frame (the entire redraw)
>>3063729
>The NMI handler is way too short, and you're effectively "idling" for the majority of the time of a frame (the entire redraw)
It is, however SMB and Zelda do put their entire code loop in the NMI and so get lots of lag.
>>3063734
yeah, I understand that now. Thanks for the explanations
>>3063707
>Famicom coding is also extremely timing-sensitive; all NMI routines must use 80 or fewer clock cycles which is how long the VBLANK lasts. In addition, you cannot access the PPU except during the VBLANK which again must occur in this 80 cycle window.
That means the routines to alter the PPU registers and VRAM are also in the NMI, correct?
>>3063737
I think so. The graphics stuff is executed and one music note played each NMI.
>>3063707
>In particular, the MMC3 uses the IRQ to bank switch tile sets for animated tiles
Are you sure about that? MMC3 does generate an IRQ, however I thought it used that for split screen scrolling.
>>3063707
>The IRQ on the Famicom is not normally triggered by anything on the main system board
This is incorrect. In fact an IRQ is triggered when the PPU renders Sprite #0 on the screen which is extensively used in non-MMC3 games for split scrolling, except it requires you to give up the use of that sprite.
The bomb graphic on the status bar is actually Sprite 0 which is used to generate the screen split here.
>>3063750
How is the screenshot related? No scrolling in Zelda, as far as I am aware
>>3063750
LOZ is a bit interesting from a technical standpoint because when you move to a screen in the east or west direction, it uses the PPU scroll registers to move the screen. When moving north or south, it uses block moves of graphics data instead because vertical scrolling is not possible with the status bar in the way. That's why the screen scroll is much slower and choppier when you move north/south.
>>3060587
is that really a conker screenshot? holy shit. I do not remember it looking anything close to that good.
>>3060662
as someone who plays NES and Atari, I'm pretty sure he was taking fault with the post for its tone of suggesting that graphics were a significant metric of quality in a game. Sure, graphics can be good, but there's little reason that a game with 'bad' graphics has to be a bad game as well.
>>3061819
Somehow it's a game that's both too short and too long. I beat it once, sold it, and don't plan to ever play it again.
>>3063756
Most of the time when you have a game that scrolls the screen in the Y direction, it's something like Mega Man where there's no split screen scroll or status bar (the health bar in MM is just a bunch of sprites).
>>3063768
So that player always know the direction he's going and so that the world feels cohesive
The coin thing on the score counter is Sprite 0.
>>3063746
I'm fairly sure you're right and the tile swapping is done automatically by the MMC3 without an IRQ.
>>3063760
it's too autistic. i never found the exit to the first level.
>>3060006
I'm surprised so many people skipped over the answer so early in the thread.
>>3056742
>with cringeworthy palette choices
The palette of NES games depends on the kind of television and output. An emulated NES game will have different colors than the same game being hooked up to an NTSC television with composite.
>>3064578
>I have a criticism for a videogame
>Nah man, it's the emulator's fault
>>3064589
But that's how the NES works. I'm sorry anon, but I can't change the way the NES works because your feelings are hurt.
>>3064595
I've used both a real nes and emulators Anon. I know the palettes can change slightly but neither will make Zelda or Mario 1 look clean.
>>3064578
but no matter how you output it, some color combinations remain cringeworthy e.g. SMB3
>>3064624
>>3064624
I'm not the anon you're responding to, but I can't really take your opinion on video quality seriously when you use HQx filters.
>>3065436
they are too autistic don't even bother
Any tips to start a CIB collection without get cheated with reproduction carts?
>>3060663
Most NES games look ugly compared to Ninja Gaiden, you slut.
>>3066046
thats what i meant, boyhole
>>3063680
it also looks like the contrast is a bit off on the op picture
>>3066173
its directly from the framebuffer no crt to srgb gamma correction applied
>>3056751
>It takes skill and experience to get the most out of old systems. That's a big reason why I love retro hardware so much.
I love what you just said. I want to lick you
>>3057514
>wowed me once
>names 2 games
Durrr
>>3068050
do it. 8 inches
>>3056742
You literally juxtapose games that try to look realistic with games that try to look cartoony.
I have never in my life thought that I'm gonna hear "photorealism is the most important thing in graphics!" argument from a retro games enthusiast.
>>3063461
Uhm.
Wind Waker, Star Fox 2, Metroid Prime, Star Fox Adventures, F-Zero GX (which honestly can hold up to some early 360 games),
>>3068401
wind waker is ugly and not next gen. shadow of the colossus or god of war were cutting edge not ugly wind waker kiddy graphics
To really get those high quality sprites working you need to use a lot of black and dark colors which makes the game muddy and hard to see.
>>3068550
but better looking
>>3064624
I'll never understand why people use those horrible filters.
>>3068468
SOTC had horrible textures and GOW was so zoomed out at all times you couldn't see the horrible textures.
>>3068765
still best looking ps2/ngc era games.
>>3056742
Talent and experience.
>>3060587
>tfw the original Crash looks better than Warped
>>3068772
I didn't like the look of SotC much. Twilight Princess pulled off the same thing, pretty much: lots of brown and lots of bloom.
Honestly I thought WW looked prettier, although by the time I played SotC I really was sick and tired of that goddamn blurry brown look so many games had been doing around that era.
>>3065681
Just don't. Prices have gone up considerably compared to 2011 and earlier. I myself used to collect CIB and I can't justify spending a ton of cash for complete games, especially for those that are considered common (Contra, Castlevania, etc.)
My collection has been stagnating for years.
>>3068920
Nothing to do with money man.
You are just bored and lost the love of your cart's.
>>3068945
Nah man, I still love my NES collection and play the games regulary. But this hobby is not affordable for me anymore. Should have started way earlier.
>>3068962
>But this hobby is not affordable for me anymore. Should have started way earlier.
flash carts exist for a reason. 80-120 dollars for 99% of a console's library is incredibly cheap.
>>3060662
The lie is in what you said. A high-resolution 3D model of a turd displayed in 4K might be uglier than a Yoshi's Island stage, for instance. A professionally drawn cartoon from Disney or some anime studio or whatever might be better to look at than a low budget live-action soap opera. Detail is not automatically good in visual art.
>>3071354
you're desperately reaching with your trivializing. Sadly this doesn't change the fact the Ninja Gaiden looks more detailed than Super Mario World.
>>3068869
Is Twilight Princess the best looking Gamecube game?
>>3068401
There's also a few good looking Mario games like Galaxy, RPG, and Yoshi's Island.
>>3068772
Personally I'm partial to FFX and FFXII. I don't really see what's so good loking in SoTC, there's not even much at all to look at in the game.
But let's not kid ourselves, the best looking game on PS2 is Odin Sphere hands down.
>>3071387
>good looking Mario games
I kek'd
>>3071395
>implying Yoshi's Island looks bad
What's wrong with HQx filters?
Is it because it conflicts with how people think the game should look?
>>3071395
Great argument, /v/ user.
What is it with /v/ users and being obsessed with graphics?
As soon as a thread on /vr/ is made concerning graphics, they all come in droves.
>>3071523
looks like a shitty saturday morning cartoon, pales in comparison to the gritty realism of megadrive games
>>3071671
I think this thread is full vr autist. you have a weird perspective. as if people on V would give a fuck about some random shitty 8bit remnant.
>>3071753
You sir, have shit taste in aesthetics.
>>3072863
no he is a person of art unlike you.
you clearly have no taste of art style.
you probably like the art style of telltale games as well.
>>3072920
go back to jacking off to your gay yoshi vore, nintardo
>>3071753
Does realism matter so long as the gameplay is good? Also maybe some people like that look... Its semantics at this point, there is no right answer
>>3068812
It really does...
>>3071753
You're giving mega-drive/genesis fans a bad name, stop it
>>3075697
everyone on vr hates that yoshi game, be it snes or n64. it looks ugly. both times. get over it.
