[Megathread] Nintendo Switch

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Oh what could have been

It's a shame no one has tried making a fangame using those beautiful Kanto Redrawn maps. Also a shame that we are a decade into the era of 3D mainline games and they still look awful compared to the 2D entries.

[Video Games]

I mean FF8 and FF9 look just fine and they run on the same hardware. I'm just saying I think FF7 graphically has aged the worst of any game I've seen and the art team should've known that the chibi 3D models would clash against the realistic looking 2D backgrounds. Obviously I forgive them as 3D games were relatively new during that time, but it doesn't change my opinion that the game has aged atrociously.

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

[rarhyx]

Oh what could have been

I prefer this over bw(2) or swsh

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I mean FF8 and FF9 look just fine and they run on the same hardware. I'm just saying I think FF7 graphically has aged the worst of any game I've seen and the art team should've known that the chibi 3D models would clash against the realistic looking 2D backgrounds. Obviously I forgive them as 3D games were relatively new during that time, but it doesn't change my opinion that the game has aged atrociously.

if i'm not mistaken ff7 is one of the very first triangle/polygon 3D technology

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I think graphics are important, but only insofar as they support the style of the game. Final Fantasy 7 is an example of a game where the graphics completely ruin the game. I'm sorry but blocky chibi Sephiroth running around stabbing people is just not intimidating at all. Whereas in Final Fantasy 7 Remake they were really able to bring Midgar and the characters to life with the enhanced graphics. Ultimately, art direction is what matters, not really the raw fidelity of a title.

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.

[Poppincaps]

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 there the industry is oversaturated with artists who have the ability to make a good looking game.

These issues aren't hard to fix, and yet GameFreak is struggling with game making 101. They have the money to hire competent talent that has experience. There is no excuse.

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.

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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.

[Video Games]

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.

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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.

You're supposed to interpert him as seen in the cgi cutscenes with your imagination. You keep looking at it through the lense of modern photo realistic graphics.

[Poppincaps]

You're supposed to interpert him as seen in the cgi cutscenes with your imagination. You keep looking at it through the lense of modern photo realistic graphics.

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.

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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.

[Video Games]

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.

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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

[Lahis]

I prefer this over bw(2) or swsh

Too bad there is no platform to run it. Game Boy Color can't do that.

[Zenfoldor]

It's not a weighted score so it's not holding it down much at all. Only main IGN is a weighted score and they haven't reviewed it yet. Gamespot with a weighted 80 basically guarantees it to stay in the mid 80s, it would need some weighted 95+ scores to overcome that and get much higher. If another weighted publication like IGN or EDGE comes in with an 8 it will drop way lower then a non weighted place giving it a 50.

That's the big difference between metacritic and opencritic. OC is an average of all reviews, MC is only big boys matter and the rest of the reviews are here for cosmetic reasons.

Wow, that is actually very interesting info, I honestly had no idea. Very relevant to my interests actually. Thanks!

[Tech614]

if i'm not mistaken ff7 is one of the very first triangle/polygon 3D technology

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.

[Beefhammer]

Apples to oranges comparison. FF7 was one of the first ever 3D games on a home console.

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.

[Tech614]

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.

Way earlier then 1995 even. Virtua Fighter came out in 1993 and that was fully rendered with polygons.

[RobertoCarlos]

Look at Crash now vs Donkey Kong and Mario. They matter for short term marketing, but don't really fool anyone once the shine has worn off. I can name a million great games with bad graphics, but I can't name one bad game that was made good because of the graphics. ALL graphics now will be bad in a few years. Graphics are a moving target, and they are by far the least important aspect of any game. They are the font of a book, and their relevance is fleeting. IMO.

In your example you mentioned games that took place before we hit diminishing returns with graphics in 3d worlds. Once diminishing returns were achieved respectively in pancake 2D/3D gaming, graphics mattered even less.

Imagination will always beat better graphics, and engaging the imagination happens more frequently with gameplay, narrative, sound design, ect, imo. That's not to say that "better graphics" isn't a ubiquitous industry. I'm a consumer there. I'm just saying that they are really not as important as I like to pretend they are, just so I can arbitrarily have something to look forward too or get excited over. Graphics alone will never make the game. Poor technical implementation can certainly hurt a game though.

Early Acreus review, spoilers of course:

https://www.consolecreatures.com/rev...egends-arceus/

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.

[Beefhammer]

Way earlier then 1995 even. Virtua Fighter came out in 1993 and that was fully rendered with polygons.

Damn! That was back in 93? Still FF7 was hardly one of the first ever 3D games.

[RobertoCarlos]

Damn! That was back in 93? Still FF7 was hardly one of the first ever 3D games.

But it was also one of the biggest. How many other games were loaded on 3 disks and covered over 30-40 hours of story with side quests/mini games and an open world at that time.

[Traveler Voltin]

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.

[Tech614]

But it was also one of the biggest. How many other games were loaded on 3 disks and covered over 30-40 hours of story with side quests/mini games and an open world at that time.

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.

[Beefhammer]

But it was also one of the biggest. How many other games were loaded on 3 disks and covered over 30-40 hours of story with side quests/mini games and an open world at that time.

No one is debating the size. Not sure how that is even relevant to a false claim of it being one if the first 3D games ever.

[Wilian]

Not even close. 1995 saw the first 3D games with the Virtual Boy

What are you smoking? There's been 3D games since late 80s.

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But it was also one of the biggest. How many other games were loaded on 3 disks and covered over 30-40 hours of story with side quests/mini games and an open world at that time.

Most of that disc size was taken by the video and audiofiles, not the game itself.