yea funny enough I got that high when recently playing Planescape torment but not Baldurs Gate I, dont know why. Still a good game though.
Baldurs gate is good but it really shows how much they were trying to capitalise on 5e actually gaining mainstream attention (not that I blame em, folks gotta eat) Divinity Original Sin 2 is a previous title by the same company and IMO feels a lot better to play both mechanically and in terms of actually having a unique feeling universe.
huh? BG I is 2nd edition DnD? Played both Divinity I and II, liked I better
BG 1 is a weird 3.5e, not 2e. Its ruleset is mostly unique, with 3/3.5 as the base.
No it isn’t. Bg1 and 2 are 2e. Icewind dale is the weird 3/3.5 ruleset
OP is talking about the first Baldur’s Gate game. Not Baldur’s Gate 3 which you are talking about. Also Baldur’s Gate 3 was in production in 2017. While it may have been in response to Stranger Things season 1 coming out, I honestly doubt it was that. BG3 is a huge labor of love and that dev team was much more intent on making a good game than cashing in on popularity of any particular ttrpg system. There are no dlc or micro transactions and marketing was sparse. I pretty much only heard about it through word of mouth. If the goal was to capitalize, they failed that. You don’t capitalize by making a game that people can buy once and have nearly limitless experiences in without spending a dime more.
It was the television or crappiness of it that made them look better than it was…
https://www.gamerevolution.com/originals/378895-heres-retro-games-look-awful-compared-remember
Can’t believe that guy left out this:
The pixels and shading on them were designed to look better with a different display pixel layout
I like how they specified the xo-1 lcd. Everyone knows the one laptop per child computer from like 2010 is the most relatable device in 2025…… 15 years later… fuck. I wasn’t even 15 when that came out.
Ive found that a cheap 1080p projector onto an unprepped painted white wall does a great job of making old crt stuff look correct.
How’s the lag on one of those things? Doesn’t matter for an RPG, but playing some of the old platformers on a modern TV is an exercise in misery, and I just couldn’t get past the first couple of levels in Um Jammer Lammy without connecting up a PC monitor instead.
Places where I’ve seen that live of projector are for eg. showing the football in a pub, and the sound and screen are noticeably out-of-sync.
It wouldnt be any good for speed runs on an OG console. But I’m using all those re-release mini consoles so they are effectively emulated and not always perfectly so its ok. Best thing is I think I paid $50 for the projector brand new so its not expensive to give it a try, and even if you think it sucks theres a novelty to playing NES on a 3 meter “screen”
Good enough that I’m still a hot hand at Metal Slug.
you need a good scanline filter if you want modern pixels to look like classic ones
Incorrect, you need a good NTSC filter. Scanlines on their own are hotdog water.
Oh! You just reminded me. I had some old hotdog water on the stove and I cooked some rice in it. Was delicious. Pretty sure boiling killed any bacteria. So there ya go: a cooking tip in with yer video game comments.
And then your European players wonder why the color artifacts are all wrong. PAL and NTSC had different distinct looks (and presumably so did SECAM).
If it helps, for all fairness, the Nintendo, Sega, and Sony consoles were all Japanese, so NTSC was their native target before getting converted to PAL. It may not be what EU kids remember growing up, but NTSC is technically more “correct” from that perspective.
With that being said, always use PAL filters with PAL versions of games and NTSC filters for NTSC versions.
Because these characters aren’t built the same as old games. That was part of the magic of older games, using as few resources as possible but cleverly cutting the spirit into easily manipulated bit maps that can be flipped and rotated as necessary to animate the character.
These are overly detailed and missing the CRT effect.
Something about people putting their heart into what they’re doing just makes it feel different.
It barely matters what it is. It could be crappy externally. It could be notes from a math class. Something about the nature of the mind that makes it goes into the thing that gets made and makes it magic. The limitations to the old hardware mean people have no choice but to bring the magic, and because they had to make magic to make the game, the game turns out to have some magic in it.
Plenty of modern games have it too. Tunic and Hollow Knight have it in a way that a lot of the pixel-art imitators do not. Pixel art is fine too. But it’s not the point.
Its because they all use Unity, Unreal, or Godot, anon. Its the game engines.
It’s really not.
Thanks for explaining, you added so much context to those downvotes.
As did you.
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
- Hitchens’ Razor
Let’s see, Secret of Mana? No third party game engine
Chrono Trigger? No third party game engine.
Final Fantasy? Hmm, NO third party game engine!
Now its not necessarily the engines themselves that turns pixel art games into the same slop. Its the constant use of the inbuilt systems for movement and things like that. Thats what makes them all feel the same and not.like the games they are imitating. The movement is different because its a system built by the third party companies generically not hand crafted for the game. That alone works miles towards a game feeling unique.
Remake of secret of mana? Unreal Engine 4.
Octopath traveler? Unreal Engine 4.
You wanna know what doesnt feel like shit? Micro Mages, because they had to create it for the NES just like a classic game. Go play it on Itch.io its dope.
Godot, Unity, and Unreal don’t provide that kind of stuff, they mostly just provide primitives for things like hit detection, lighting, and physics. Things like movement are generally done by hand, unless the developer is super lazy and buys premade assets from an asset store or something. But then the problem isn’t with the engine, but the developer, and they’d release trash even if they didn’t use one.
I’m not big into pixel graphics, I’m into good games. Here are some examples of good games I’ve played that happen to use pixel graphics, and the engine they used:
- Darkside Detective - Unity
- Oxenfree - Unity
- Dave the Diver - Unity
- Undertake - Gamemaker Studio
- Celeste - MonoGame
- Stardew Valley - MonoGame
Those three examples you gave were made by major studios before game engines were a thing. They used pixel graphics because that’s all they could afford (FF was notorious for being multiple disks).
I’m sure I could find examples in Godot or Unreal if I looked.
My point is that it’s not the engine, it’s the devs. Whether a game is good has less to do with the engine used and more to do with the passion, budget, and time of the devs.
Yes they absolutely do provide input detection
https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/[email protected]/manual/index.html
https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/enhanced-input-in-unreal-engine
https://docs.godotengine.org/en/4.0/tutorials/inputs/index.html
Using these in conjunction with their physics or even just their built in systems for positions gives games a certain feel.
Input detection, sure, but even “no engine” games use standard input detection libraries, like SDL. I’m guessing the games you listed likely use the same library for that, and the behavior is probably identical to what Unreal, Godot, and Unity do. There’s pretty much no “feel” here.
I’ve built games, I’m pretty familiar with what they offer here. Input detection just abstracts over hardware differences, so you can check if they pressed “A” instead of knowing that’s “controller button 7” or whatever. Most games will still interpret that manually (e.g. if “A” is “jump,” apply X force upward for the physics system).
Physics is highly tuned by the developer, regardless of what abstraction they use, especially for simpler games where physics isn’t really a thing (e.g. older FF games just had simple object detection). You can achieve pretty much any feel you want with any of the standard physics engines, especially for simpler interactions like platforming.
There’s no reason I couldn’t build a convincing reimplementation of FF or Secret of Mana in Godot, Unreal, or Unity. Generally speaking, that’s not the goal.
It’s not just the pixel art but the rest of the game as well.
I will take this moment to recommend Crosscode, one of the all time greats
Could anyone id the game in the screen shot for me?
Thanks!
The question is not only what game is it, but also, is it any good?
There’s many factors, honestly. For example, a lot of pixelated games have animations that break the “pixel barrier”, eg, a character moves smoothly over half pixels. Another thing is pixel scales being completely different. Sometimes a character or an icon has larger pixels than those on a map. Another factor is simply a variety of textures and colours- older games had limited colours for most objects, counting the underlying map as an object in itself. Not every colour could be used, and sometimes, a lot games weren’t actually on the same saturation as people remember.
Music will be another factor.
A reason to use pixelated graphics isn’t necessarily for nostalgia, it’s that it’s simply easier to make the game look good and consistent. Which is excellent for an indie game. 3d graphics could be more costly and higher res graphics are harder to look better due to the added detail. With pixels, your brain kinda just fills it in and it doesn’t go to the uncanny valley.
I think good examples are the likes of windwaker and thomas was alone. Both had simplistic art styles which wasn’t pushing the console to the limits, and both are beautiful games.
I remember when I had to make a game for an assignment. Other classmates were trying to go for realism humans and such, mixing and matching downloaded graphics and textures. It looked how you’d expect. The most detailed texture I used was a skybox, then made my own textures and models which were simply flat colours and neon green cones for trees and big boxes with ramps for hills. I then played around with the emissive properties until the lighting looked nice. I got good marks, the graphics were cited as a reason.
I digress,
I think here the pixel art is too good, back in the day they wouldn’t have been making something so complex.
It’s not just about looks. It’s about novelty, marvel giving way to generosity towards the crunchy parts of the design. And of course, a compelling story in a new world.
It also depends on the system they’re trying to emulate the style of. This would fit fine in the PS1 “Of Mana” game. Too complex for SNES, which is what most people probably assuming graphics like this are going for.
Another thing is pixel scales being completely different. Sometimes a character or an icon has larger pixels than those on a map.
Stardew Valley for the most part does pixel art right, but it’s always jarring to see the player character’s weird skinny fishing line. It’s worst when it’s juxtaposed with other characters whose lines are drawn correctly:
That massive fish is also a bit jarring. Usually SDValley kinda works though because of the tiling. Wasn’t that game also almost entirely made by one dude?
I think that fish (and the trout tag on the left side of the screen) may just have been screenshotted mid-catch. In the game, when you catch a fish you fling it through the air in an arc and then it lands in your hands:
That catch animation doesn’t show it, (maybe it’s from an earlier version of the game?), but I’m pretty sure the current version scales the sprite bigger and then smaller as it travels through its arc as sort of a 3D special effect.
it’s a mod
The massive fish (and several other on-screen elements) are modded additions, not from ConcernedApe.
That’s a great spot and I tried to picture it but couldn’t so I also appreciate the screenshot
Also, 256 colours
This is why shovel knight looks and feels like the old classics it’s imitating. They artificially limited themselves to color pallets and some technical limits that old systems had. I think they ended up using 18 colors instead of 16, and double the sprites on screen, among some of them. Indie games usually just go with what looks good and use modern limits because they can. Most the time it’s not a choice, they just do what works and that’s ok too.
I love limited pallettes. I love how in the original Legend of Zelda, Link changes colors a little every time the pallette swaps. I think getting creative with limited colors looks so much cooler than just having every color possible.
Restrictions breed creativity.
UFO 50 is definitely the “Modern Retro” king, IMHO. The only thing missing is box art and manuals.
You’d love Tunic. It’s 3D, but damn do they ever capture that feeling, including the manual (which you collect in-game, page by page)
Tunic is just a great game hands down. I think it’s in my top 5.
Also really cool game to watch speed runs, becuase there are a lot of tricks you learn throughout your first gameplay that aren’t actually locked behind anything, just knowledge. A bit like “Outer Wilds” in that regard.
…aaaaand wishlisted on Steam! Snagging it next time it goes on sale
Eh I don’t think shovel knight looks like the old classics. It looks way too refined to me when compared to a nes title.
There’s a more comprehensive breakdown from yachtclub themselves here I was off a bit in my specific examples but overall they do a good job breaking down why their game fits and breaks the mold with lots of examples. The game is a lot more faithful to NES than the vast majority of indie pixel art games. There were a few late-gen NES titles that are relatively unknown but look way more detailed and complex than the typical NES game too.
Check out Retro City Rampage. The creator made a version that works on original NES hardware: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/02/retro-city-rampage-creator-makes-a-real-playable-nes-port/
It looks more like a Genesis/SNES title than NES.
Anon is old, anon can see through the matrix.
When you were young you didn’t see the game, you just experienced the world.
Maybe because it’s not limited. If your comfort games were in RPG Maker, then 24-bit pixels are right, but good art is wrong. If they were on consoles, they should be aggressively paletted and tiled.
Try homebrew. An NES or SNES game will always look about right, because breaking those limits is a thousand times harder than embracing them.
you can never go home
no indie rpg will ever make me feel like playing Golden Sun as a kid did
That main menu music was so great
I love the entire OST. the Saturos theme is one of my favourite ones
Playing Chrono Trigger as an adult will ever make me feel like playing Chrono Trigger as a kid did.
Yeah, they would need to be able to turn you back into your kid self, experiences and all. A lot of that magic is from you being a child.
Removed by mod
The sun will rise again!
As Yahtzee has suggested, people aren’t nostalgic for old games, but for how they felt playing old games. Much harder to capture that, and beautiful pixel art alone isn’t enough.
And that’s why I generally avoid games that advertise themselves as “pixel art.” I have no problem with pixel art itself and I play many pixel art games, but the art style is secondary to whether it’s fun.
Because as a child, everything is novel and new for you so you get that sense of high and awe seeing something new. But now as adults, recreating that feeling is almost impossible because you have already experienced it before.
that’s why you should seek out new things to see wonder and novel in. as a person with hyperfixation/-focus, that is very easy for me.
Nothing hammers this home like raising a kid.
The sense of joy and wonder they feel about something as simple as learning how to turn on a faucet. Suddenly, they’re magical and can summon water.
It makes you feel jaded.
You can also choose to embrace bringing them joy with each new experience, and share in their happiness that way.
try envigorated. I don’t know if you watch let’s plays at all, but me I mainly do it with games that I’ve finished but can’t play again with the knowledge I already have. great puzzle and mystery solving games like obra dinn, the witness, etc. or games with amazing twists like prey… some things you can’t live through twice, but you can witness the joy in others when they do it for the first time. that’s why I do it. with kids, it’s literally everything.
you should watch the Love Death and Robots episode Pop Squad.
You can get that feeling when learning something new as an adult, too. Your first python program is running? You renovated something in your home that your haven’t done before? Planted a tree and it’s having fruits for the first time? Changed the tires on your car? It’s awesome!
This is why I started hiking and summiting mountains. I mean, not literally why, but it’s chasing that new and novel high.
You’re also literally chasing new highs though. Sounds like the whole package…
