askchapo

PC-98 is still unmatched. Nobody ever needed more than 16 colors.

I dunno about favorite era overall but the transition from beautifully crafted pixel art sprites in fighting games to... this... will never not be a tragedy to me.

I never had one, but I am partial to gamecube level graphics. A lot of features, but not to the point of realism, leading to very visually interesting stuff.

Sprites that look vaguely 3D:

Art.

1999-2004-ish has a lot of nostalgia for me. PC games from around that time and consoles like the psx, ps2 and dreamcast I spent a lot of time with. We were starting to catch glimpses of what next gen visuals were going to look like on upcoming consoles like the 360 and PS3.

Playstation. I know the ps2 graphics were technically "better" but i loved those pre-rendered backgrounds and fixed camera angles.

Late Amiga 3D games. You could just tell the vision far exceeded the hardware's capabilities, but that didn't stop them from trying. Some really impressive technical tricks and code optimization in that era because you couldn't just throw more hardware at the problem.

I feel like part of why modern graphics look flat is that they’re so visually busy that you can’t appreciate entire scenes and end up just focusing on whichever part of the screen the action is happening on. But maybe that’s just me

now.. because you can play games from all eras

Late 2D art for me. While the early Playstation era has a lot of god-awful looking early 3D games, it's also home to many of the best looking 2D games of all time. Some modern titles can get close to the level of quality those games had but even the best modern pixel art just isn't the same as what the industry was capable of back then because there was an entire development pipeline for 2D art that doesn't exist anymore.

Probably between 1995 and 2004/5. I really liked the mix of realistic and cartoonish styles we had during that period. Also, I think game genres weren't completely established yet, so developers were much more creative and had more freedom to experiment with gameplay and graphics.

I think the PS2 era had the perfect balance between fidelity, fun, creative limitations, and requiring fewest people to create. Previous eras were plagued by early hardware limitations (plus learning curve for 3D), and later eras grew so graphically intense it required armies of artists.

I love Monkey Island for its pixel-ey goodness and hand-drawn point and click, the peak of which is probably Broken Sword 2, 1997.

These styles are still replicated by indie games now so they were clearly doing something right.

maybe i'm just weird but i liked the Black Ops 2/Max Payne 3 era graphics, specially if they had the piss-filter on them.

i'm not really capable of articulating why i like them so much specifically, but something about the models having enough detail in them to immerse you in its facsimile of a real world while also not exaggerating the polygon count to an unhealthily heavy degree (looking at you, 500gbs Modern Warfare 2019), plus the weird flare-effects/mexico filters they usually had at least suggested some vague idea of a style they were aiming for, unlike the hyperrealist, bland Unreal engine slop they make nowadays

I don't care about graphical fidelity much and if anything I like 'worse' graphics because it usually means better performance. Chaos theory, Gta 4, and Kingdom come I think all look great. I still like how Halo 1, Kenshi, Grim dawn, and Bannerlord look though. I think art style and direction matter more.

if i had to point to a single game though it would be shrek 1 on the xbox.

PS2 had the better games, but I feel like original XBox had just the right level of graphics for me before the diminishing returns started kicking in. I don't need good graphics, but if it just stops at good or okay that's still nice. Detailed, but stylized enough to make up for the lack of detail. and leaning on the garish side!

Early 3D. N64, Playstation 1 both have an amazing charm to them that nothing else can seem to match.

Absolutely love the mid-late 2000s era of normal maps, stencil shadows, and real dynamic lighting. Absolutely Doom 3 & Splinter Cell, I'd also throw in FEAR (a style which they threw out in the much worse looking sequels), and Riddick: Butcher Bay. Give me more games where you can shoot lights out and turn an area just absolutely pitch black.

Now because I really like high fidelity graphics where you can get lost in the world, but it's a specific tool for specific uses. Battlefield 1 really benefits from realistic graphics because the horror comes from the chaos and immersion. Assetto Corsa with CSP also benefits from it as immersion is critical for that game. However, in games that aren't simulations or reliant on immersion (90% of games), photorealism just makes your computer hotter than it should.

the 16-bit era has aged incredibly well imo

The too-photorealistic yet still fuzzy, hazy, and unsettlingly unreal prerendered 3D exploration games from the mid-90s

I don't think i have any, well maybe the moment where games were jumping from 320x240 to 640x480, that difference was huge.

Current one is fine too, except most of pixel art. Some of it do look good, but for fucks sake most of pixel art just look like soulless, lazy and cheap imitations of the abovementioned two eras and for someone who did played then it does look like insult smeared with shit.

Rest of my favorites are bit newer, but I find System Shock 2 style really appealing. Amazing atmosphere with 1999 tech, lightning and sound are better than in some newer higher budget games had.

3 models are simple, but not too low spec so they wouldn't be scary.

It's really hard to beat Sixth Gen(Gamecube, Dreamcast, PS2, the other one) for me.

Kind of a broad net to cast but I think all of my real favourite game graphics looks are encompassed here, anything outside that is more down to being particularly stylized or experimental, but when it comes to just straight up "doing the best that you can" style graphics, can't beat this generation.