Games with art direction that makes them hold up.

[minteK917]

So recently i been replaying bloodborne in front of a friend that cant play it, but wanted to see it. Now it sucks that theres no 60 fps on ps5, faster loading helps and well 30 fps is at least playable with the console frame pacing. But no what struck me playing this 4 years since last time, is how this 2015 visual holds up so much, it looks better then ds3 and sekiro to me.

It should be a dated game since its on the realistic side and from 2015, but i think the art direction just pulls through, the effects used to make the entire game look dream like, kind of helps it hold up by looking like a painting despite its lower texture resolutions and such. When you try to look at things closely, you can tell the entire game has this weird dream like filter on and it works.








Id be interested to see other example of games you guys think manage to hold up on art direction alone making them not look as dated as they should.

[Daedius]

Crysis? That's a 13 year old game.

Hell, Legend of Zelda Wind Walker is almost 20 years old and it still looks good. Generally Cell Shaded games will tend to hold up, same with Pixel games.

[minteK917]

Crysis? That's a 13 year old game.

Hell, Legend of Zelda Wind Walker is almost 20 years old and it still looks good.

Does the first crysis still look good?

Wind Waker does hold up with the shaded for sure.

[Wrecktangle]

Bloodborne's a favorite of mine for sure, especially for how well the entire game holds up. My example isn't true today, but for the longest time IMO, Zone of the Enders 2 held up extremely well graphically from it's PS2 era.

[minteK917]

Bloodborne's a favorite of mine for sure, especially for how well the entire game holds up. My example isn't true today, but for the longest time IMO, Zone of the Enders 2 held up extremely well graphically from it's PS2 era.

forgot about that game, but i remember it looking good.

[Unlimited Power]

For a 2004 release, I'd argue the Half-Life 2 graphics hold up fairly well.

[dope_danny]

This is a game running on hardware from like 1999/2000 and not a pc but a home console.

[Video Games]

I still think the gameboy zeldas look incredible.

[Fencers]

The first Dead Space, Ico, Banner Saga, Borderlands, Might & Magic: Dark Messiah, Thief 2, Prey, and FF15 have particularly good art direction that still is highly communicative. Symphony of the Night, FF1, Metal Slug, Super Metroid, Fantasy Zone, Earthworm Jim, and Vectorman also hold up well. A Link to the Past, obviously. FFT and FF6 as well.

[Pakheth]

Okami.
Came out in 2006 in JP and US, 2007 in EU.
The stylistic art choice makes it look just as good now as when it came out.

It's supposed to look like an ink painting(sumi-e) and it captures it brilliantly by using techniques like outlines, billboards and clever use of textures. That it's blocky doesn't really bother me because the style itself can be rather blocky with sharp edges so it looks intentional rather than a limitation.

The HD versions just gave the game a higher resolution but is otherwise identical.

[uuuhname]

LoZ: the Wind Waker
I would say even the first kingdom hearts game holds up really well and so does the second game even without the remasters.

[McNeil]

Warcraft 3 looks so timeless to me thanks to their own cartoonish style. It also shows that even if Reforged has much better quality models, it still feels like a downgrade to me because it completely loses the appealing art style that made the first WC3 so great. Making the models look too detailed, gritty and realistic makes the whole game feel off to me.

[Zenfoldor]

I agree Wind Waker HD is still incredible looking in parts, and still holds up excellently as a game too.

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

Any game with a more cartoony or stylized art direction is gonna hold up, really. So most nintendo games, crash bandicoot, spyro, Hollow Knight, Dishonored, etc.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Yoshi's Story for N64

[Val the Moofia Boss]

WoW zones are the hands down the best looking environments in gaming, bar none. Only Genshin Impact comes close.

There are too many aesthetically amazing zones. It'd probably be easier for me to list the ones I don't like (pretty much Vanilla zones, Azuna, Nazmir, and Maldraxxus).

Images

Spoiler: 

The armor is also great. I've lost track of how many hours I've spent building custom transmogs on WoWhead and then heading out into the world trying to assemble them.

[Edge-]

This is a game running on hardware from like 1999/2000 and not a pc but a home console.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.n...etterbox=false

Sure looks like the image grabbed off a PC version of the remaster. Also, these kinds of random graphical comparisons are fairly pointless/useless, especially considering the 2020 image is from an unreleased game. Also, ignores the rest of the scene which makes this an even worse comparison.

"If I cherry pick two images I can make them show whatever I want!" I hear shouted from the internet somewhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9Iey9UF3LE

Here's what the game actually looks like on PS2, with grainy low-resolutions and all. It's still technically impressive for the hardware, but that's a really, really, really, really bad attempt at some "gotcha" comparison.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Banner Saga

Also incredible. I love the Eyvind Earl esque environments, and the characters look great. Can't find a high rez album that doesn't contain a lot of spoiler pics, though, so I can't link here to show to everyone else. But it looks amazing! And is a great game! Recommended to everyone

Thief 2

Eh, it has good aesthetics but it doesn't graphically look very good today. Morrowind has great aesthetics too but doesn't graphically hold up.

FF15

Eh. Maybe the characters look great in cutscenes, but the environments are bland. It's just Barstow. Only good looking environment was Altissia (particularly in cinematics).



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Spyro