I tend to prefer early 2000s 3D graphics over the modern stuff anyway. There was plenty of capability to work with, and it seemed like the game designers did a much better job of giving a game a "feel." There was also much more done creatively with lighting and darkness and my favorite how many games liked to make things like breakables and loose objects. Think something like Half-Life 2 or F.E.A.R. where you walk around carelessly and bump into things and it goes flying off a shelf etc.
Now, they just go crazy with their ugly character models and realistic frizzy hair movement but the world is always so "same" feeling and very rigid.
Yeah, obviously it would be great to have my cake and eat it too, but in my opinion it is better to have decent graphics but spend the lion's share of budget on other things than to have amazing state of the art graphics and skimp on other shit.
One of the reasons I like anime-stylized RPG games so much. Anime paperdolls are super-cheap to make, require minimal animation budget, and yet are also highly expressive and descriptive of how the character "should" look.
Cost-benefit-wise, they're such an obvious choice to make, that it makes you wonder about the games that choose to NOT do them. Why waste that much budget?
I think they even said at one point it wasn't really that smart, it was just level design. Always liked level design like that, there was a designated point A to point B you had to cross, but the in between was open to multiple routes and methods.
Think of it this way. Elden Ring sold well but took like 8 years and a lot of money to make. Make 8 shitty games instead for 1/2 as much total and release those instead. Profit maximized. Play? Not so much.
Yeah, games on the dreamcast, ps2, xbox and gamecube still hold up. Games do look better now graphically, but at the cost of more and more that made games fun and unique.
I looked at my PS2 collection recently for a nostalgia hit, and for what to play next. The standout games were not those with amazing graphics, but with a unique art style that set it apart from the rest of the games at the time.
As an example, Gran Turismo 4 looks great, but so does Sly Cooper 1 and 2, for very different reasons.
The soul part was always a bit of a meme but honestly, its true. New games lack the passion the devs put into the game not only in gameplay but also in look. Something like say klonoa still looks better than a TLOU2
I also think it was just an easy way to say that the game felt good overall.
From responsive tight controls, to the gameplay itself being fairly interesting and engaging. The moment to moment stuff might've been monotonous, like collecting all the jiggies, or spelling kong or whatever you did outside of normal get from point A to point B in the games. You knew what was asked of you, and how to go about it. Whether you just wanted to play the game and collect only what was right in front of you, or get it all and do it all, that was your decision.
Now story elements are sometimes locked behind having to play the game a specific way just to get you to continue. And they're starting to feel more and more like a tacked on reason for in game stores to exist. Or they exist just to be indoctrination engines, with games surrounding them.
Basically, it feels like you're either paying with your money or your mind. And I'd rather my entertainment be entertaining.
Restrictions breed creativity. It truly is that simple. Remove the restrictions of technological capability, and it's no surprise that the creativity of design also starts to vanish.
Restrictions + competition, yes. In the olden days all the companies published their games on single floppy disks/cassette tapes/cartridges and they had to create actual works of magic to overshadow the competitors. It's when everyone switched to the CD and 3D graphics that creativity took a nosedive and companies started to compete in who makes the biggest polygonal tiddies.
The example I like to give is the Legend of Kyrandia series. The first one came out on four floppies, the second one on eight and the third one on a cd. These screenshots from Mobygames say everything. The pixel art in the first two games is absolutely breathtaking and interactive, whereas the final one has frozen 3D textured/modelled backgrounds with 2D characters dumped on top of it.
Quest for Glory had a similar trajectory. First 4 were beautifully hand-drawn. 5th one was in the era of early 3d and it just didn't have the same quality.
A lot of games like that made the jump to 3d way too early.
I've been playing old adventure games using Dosbox and ScummVM recently. I'm having a lot of fun. I've been point maxing some games that seemed impossible as a kid, playing games I wanted but never got, etc.
I'm thinking about trying some of the really old Gold Box D&D games. Pools of Radiance, etc. Not sure that they've aged well.
Pools of Radiance is a bit iffy but entirely playable, but if you're willing to go back to red box, beyond gold box, the Sega Genesis' "Warriors Of The Eternal Sun" is a banger D&D RPG for its era, though it has a couple broken or janky mechanics, it's honestly a marvel how well it adapted things onto such a limited system.
Made an 8 hour RPG out of less data than a 3-minute youtube video in data.
I've done a lot of old shooters in GZDoom. Just slightly modernized and if I get really bored, there's a huge list of available free "mod" games.
Played Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis a dozen times I bet in my life, both old DOS from when that was still a thing to ScummVM. I really need to go through The Dig as that's one I never got that far into.
Also tried Ultima series in DOS recently. I just can't manage to get into those.
I played a couple of the Ultimas as a kid. For me, the interface is just too rough to play today. I've tried a couple times with Ultima4, 6, and even 7, and I just can't do it.
Every gamer: "go back! Go back! It was better before!"
And that's why everyone if they're not playing indie, are playing older games.
I tend to prefer early 2000s 3D graphics over the modern stuff anyway. There was plenty of capability to work with, and it seemed like the game designers did a much better job of giving a game a "feel." There was also much more done creatively with lighting and darkness and my favorite how many games liked to make things like breakables and loose objects. Think something like Half-Life 2 or F.E.A.R. where you walk around carelessly and bump into things and it goes flying off a shelf etc.
Now, they just go crazy with their ugly character models and realistic frizzy hair movement but the world is always so "same" feeling and very rigid.
Yeah, obviously it would be great to have my cake and eat it too, but in my opinion it is better to have decent graphics but spend the lion's share of budget on other things than to have amazing state of the art graphics and skimp on other shit.
Yup. I love excellent graphics, but if the game is good, as long as the graphics aren't ass, that's better than a bland game with top notch graphics.
But imagine if the heart that went into older games was still going into modern AAA games. We really could be having our cake and eating it too.
One of the reasons I like anime-stylized RPG games so much. Anime paperdolls are super-cheap to make, require minimal animation budget, and yet are also highly expressive and descriptive of how the character "should" look.
Cost-benefit-wise, they're such an obvious choice to make, that it makes you wonder about the games that choose to NOT do them. Why waste that much budget?
The AI in FEAR was also great. Strange that we never got something like that again. Probably due to level design being shitty in most games.
I think they even said at one point it wasn't really that smart, it was just level design. Always liked level design like that, there was a designated point A to point B you had to cross, but the in between was open to multiple routes and methods.
Think of it this way. Elden Ring sold well but took like 8 years and a lot of money to make. Make 8 shitty games instead for 1/2 as much total and release those instead. Profit maximized. Play? Not so much.
Yeah, games on the dreamcast, ps2, xbox and gamecube still hold up. Games do look better now graphically, but at the cost of more and more that made games fun and unique.
I looked at my PS2 collection recently for a nostalgia hit, and for what to play next. The standout games were not those with amazing graphics, but with a unique art style that set it apart from the rest of the games at the time.
As an example, Gran Turismo 4 looks great, but so does Sly Cooper 1 and 2, for very different reasons.
The soul part was always a bit of a meme but honestly, its true. New games lack the passion the devs put into the game not only in gameplay but also in look. Something like say klonoa still looks better than a TLOU2
I think you're right about soul being a meme.
I also think it was just an easy way to say that the game felt good overall.
From responsive tight controls, to the gameplay itself being fairly interesting and engaging. The moment to moment stuff might've been monotonous, like collecting all the jiggies, or spelling kong or whatever you did outside of normal get from point A to point B in the games. You knew what was asked of you, and how to go about it. Whether you just wanted to play the game and collect only what was right in front of you, or get it all and do it all, that was your decision.
Now story elements are sometimes locked behind having to play the game a specific way just to get you to continue. And they're starting to feel more and more like a tacked on reason for in game stores to exist. Or they exist just to be indoctrination engines, with games surrounding them.
Basically, it feels like you're either paying with your money or your mind. And I'd rather my entertainment be entertaining.
Restrictions breed creativity. It truly is that simple. Remove the restrictions of technological capability, and it's no surprise that the creativity of design also starts to vanish.
Restrictions + competition, yes. In the olden days all the companies published their games on single floppy disks/cassette tapes/cartridges and they had to create actual works of magic to overshadow the competitors. It's when everyone switched to the CD and 3D graphics that creativity took a nosedive and companies started to compete in who makes the biggest polygonal tiddies.
The example I like to give is the Legend of Kyrandia series. The first one came out on four floppies, the second one on eight and the third one on a cd. These screenshots from Mobygames say everything. The pixel art in the first two games is absolutely breathtaking and interactive, whereas the final one has frozen 3D textured/modelled backgrounds with 2D characters dumped on top of it.
Quest for Glory had a similar trajectory. First 4 were beautifully hand-drawn. 5th one was in the era of early 3d and it just didn't have the same quality.
A lot of games like that made the jump to 3d way too early.
Toss a grenade in a dark room with a lamp hanging from the ceiling. That's how good the environment was.
I've been playing old adventure games using Dosbox and ScummVM recently. I'm having a lot of fun. I've been point maxing some games that seemed impossible as a kid, playing games I wanted but never got, etc.
I'm thinking about trying some of the really old Gold Box D&D games. Pools of Radiance, etc. Not sure that they've aged well.
Pools of Radiance is a bit iffy but entirely playable, but if you're willing to go back to red box, beyond gold box, the Sega Genesis' "Warriors Of The Eternal Sun" is a banger D&D RPG for its era, though it has a couple broken or janky mechanics, it's honestly a marvel how well it adapted things onto such a limited system.
Made an 8 hour RPG out of less data than a 3-minute youtube video in data.
I've done a lot of old shooters in GZDoom. Just slightly modernized and if I get really bored, there's a huge list of available free "mod" games.
Played Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis a dozen times I bet in my life, both old DOS from when that was still a thing to ScummVM. I really need to go through The Dig as that's one I never got that far into.
Also tried Ultima series in DOS recently. I just can't manage to get into those.
I played a couple of the Ultimas as a kid. For me, the interface is just too rough to play today. I've tried a couple times with Ultima4, 6, and even 7, and I just can't do it.
I still want to play 7 some day.
You can use the Exult open source engine to play Ultima 7 with a lot of QoL improvements.