I also think its aged like shit, but im judging it by 1997 stanards and a lot of people thought it was one of the best looking games at the time. Like i think mario world looks better than dong bong cunt 30 years later because its much cleaner and vibrant, but i wont deny people thought dong bong cunt was graphcially amazing for its time
Apples to oranges comparison. FF7 was one of the first ever 3D games on a home console. 3D gaming was in its infancy and Square had to learn through trial and error and do everything themselves, as there were few to no off the shelf programs they could buy. They had to create their own development software.
Arceus released after the games industry had 25 years of experience working on 3D games and has nailed down the techniques and pipelines. Lots of off the shelf software exists and the industry is oversaturated with artists who have the ability to make a good looking game. Game Freak is the front runner for a hundred billion dollar franchise. There is no reason why they can't have hired the talent required to make their games look bloody fantastic, as well as play well, and yet here they are struggling with game making 101.
Last edited by Val the Moofia Boss; 2022-01-26 at 10:00 PM.
My point is that Sephiroth is supposed to be a super intimidating guy, but most of the game you see him as this blocky chibi character. In Legends Arceus, it may not look good but nothing graphically stands out as breaking my immersion like in Final Fantasy 7.
Also the gifs you posted have nothing to do with graphics, so I don't know why you posted them. Regardless, I'm not about to play devil's advocate for these games. I don't think they look great, but they're servicable enough that it likely won't detract from my experience.
- - - Updated - - -
It really doesn't matter how new or old the game is, ultimately the graphics in FF7 are not serving the message the game is trying to tell. They didn't have to make it 3D, they chose to because Square was all about pushing boundaries at the time, and I respect that. The unfortunate consequence is that you have a game that has aged incredibly poorly.
If I wanted to use my imagination I'd read a book. Also, you could that argument for most 2D games like Final Fantasy 6, but FF6's graphics don't clash in the way that 7s does. Also I literally just said FF8 and FF9 look fine and they were released like literally 2 years and 3 years after 7. Crash Bandicoot also has shitty blocky 3D models, but it works in the environment they put him in.
- - - Updated - - -
Regardless this is super off topic, just replace FF7 with whatever other game you feel has a dissonance between the mood of the game and the graphics of the game.
You had to use your imagination in early gaming with its caveman graphics. Also of couse they look better after getting a grasp of the hardware.
Crash LOOKS fine because they had to compromise on draw diatance which is worse than when i take my glasses off. Ff7 looks like shit now, but at the time had amazing backgrounds and full modled battles and cgi cutscenes. That was the compromise. By 1998, most studios had a good grasp on the hardware with re2, mgs and ff8
First FF yea...
Not even close to being one of the first games using that tech lol. Anyways FFIX ended up looking a full gen ahead of FFVII, not in just the rendered polygon models either but in the pre rendered backgrounds and cgi cutscenes as well. VII was definitely a rough first go for Square, and they got better at rendering 3D very rapidly.
Not even close. 1995 saw the first 3D games with the Virtual Boy, and the N64 and PS had quite a few before FF7 released.yes it was still in it's infancy, but there were better looking first time 3D games before FF7 showed up.
And yes, there have been over 25 years of 3D games, but GF had not stepped into the 3D space really until Sword and Shield. Which those games and this game aren't that bad considering the budget they have to work with. You'd think the devs of one of gaming's biggest IPs could get a AAA budget instead of AA. Maybe with more funding they could hire more 3D artists or have more time to fix animations or whatever peoples issues are with these Switch games.
Personally I think they look fine. Graphics are usually way down the list of things I care about when deciding on a game to buy. Even then, graphical quality rarely ever figures into my decisions. Gameplay, is king, everything else being good is just a bonus.
Thats a fair point about diminishing returns.
Comparing the era of 2D going into 3D there was clearly a lot of room to explore. And its harder to bring that wow factor when you have games now bordering on very close to realistic nature.
And I agree with posters above that its not so much about the pure graphic fidility but the art direction in general. Thats why Its so disappointing the quality. Because the pokemon art style isnt particularly demanding and is 90% bright color and it really wouldn't be that difficult to make it look good.
as i look at all the new Hisuian Pokémon/forms. all i can think is yikes. i like a few of them but the rest are meh.
Anemo: traveler, Sucrose
Pyro: Yanfei, Amber, diluc, xiangling, thoma, Xinyan, Bennett
Geo: Noelle, Ningguang, Yun Jin, Gorou
Hydro: Barbara, Zingqiu, Ayato
Cyro: Shenhe, Kaeya, Chongyun, Diona, Ayaka, Rosaria
Electro: Fischl, Lisa, Miko, Kujou, Raiden, Razor
It wasn't loaded up on 3 discs because of how big the world was or how much content it had. It was because it had pre rendered backgrounds and fmv videos. Hell the 3rd disc is like 2 hours lmfao.
Also calling it an open world seems silly. It used the same world map structure SNES FF games used and its not like it looked good either. Everything in VII that looked decent for the time was inside areas with pre rendered backgrounds. The world map looked like trash, truthfully at the time I thought the world map looked worse then VI.
Last edited by Tech614; 2022-01-27 at 06:33 PM.
Modern gaming apologist: I once tasted diarrhea so shit is fine.
"People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an excercise of power, are barbarians" - George Lucas 1988