Graphically Marvelous Games

SubrosianDimitri

The King of Poor Decision Making
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When it comes to most games, graphics aren't the most vital part of the game, probably the least important thing under most circumstances. However, nothing says they can't enhance your experience or make a game more distinctive from its peers, especially when things like atmosphere are vital to the experience.

And that's what this is about, the graphics in games that impress you for whatever reasons. It doesn't have to be from a really recent game, it doesn't have to be realistic, heck, the game itself can be terrible. As long as it looks good, it counts (though that obviously won't save a bad game).

- Okami: I personally wasn't able to get into this game, but from what little I did play and watching my brother play it through at least 2 times, I gotta say that the art style is really amazing. The heavy ink and paintbrush style combined with the vibrant colors makes this game a visual wonder, even moreso when restoring an area.
- The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: Didn't get very far in this game either (beat the fourth dungeon, then just kind of gave up), but what I saw was beautiful for a gamecube title, and it still looks good today. The facial expressions and body language of the characters are amazing, and the effects when you hit an enemy are incredibly satisfying.
- Dust: An Elysian Tail: Gorgeous hand-drawn characters and environments with some 3D thrown in for a few enemies and Dust's sword. Those animations are incredibly detailed, it's no wonder it took 3 years to make with how beautiful it looks and how well it plays.
- Freedom Planet: Beautiful sprite work on the characters and environments, with lots of visually distinct areas and some really cool-looking bosses. The animations are smooth and while it has a few hiccups with the sprite rotation or clipping at times, it looks like a 2D game that I could easily see on the Sega Saturn, which was a 2D powerhouse.
- Kirby's Epic Yarn: I love the yarn and fabric style of this game, it just looks so beautiful, especially for a Wii game. It really looks like everything is made of actual yarn, and if someone told me these levels were actually made from real yarn and then scanned into the game, I would believe them.
- Katawa Shoujo: For a game made by a bunch of random The Butt Zone-ers, this title looks really good, especially the character portraits and the FMVs. Mike Inel did a really good job animating each of the 6 animations in the game, even if it isn't close to the best animation I've seen. The portraits are incredibly detailed for this kind of thing, too. Seriously, you can see every curl in Misha's hair drills, and while some of the sprites could have used a bit of extra cleanup (mainly Emi), they're great for what they are. I will admit that the CGs are wildly inconsistent in quality though, especially when it comes to Hanako's burn scars.
- BIT.TRIP Flux: Very simple graphics, but done with a lot of flair and style. Plenty of visual pizazz to overload your retinas while you block tiny squares in a one-sided musical Pong game. This is a prime example of how simplicity can look better than all those realistic graphics engines.
- Dragon Quest VIII: More cell shading, and quite well done. Looks really good for a PS2 game, and it still looks good today, helped immensely by Akira Toriyama's distinctive art style. The animatons, the spells, and the designs are all just wonderful, and I wish more games would do something like this as opposed to trying to look realistic, because those graphics age really poorly when compared to something like this.
 

Quid

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Feb 3, 2016
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Journey's a beautiful game - lacking text and voices, it relies heavily on the visuals and soundtrack to get across the story and pulls it off so well. I'm particularly fond of its use of colour.

Edit: oh, and ditto in regards to Wind Waker, but what I love most about that game are the shapes. Those paper-cut swirls were so different from any other explosion effect I'd seen before, but so effective!
 

Avering

Pew-Pew
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Feb 3, 2016
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I'd go with Hyper Light Drifter.
It has some really minimalistic, but marvelous pixel graphic. And an extremely good color usage.
 

D96

Michigan Wolverines Fanatic
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Feb 3, 2016
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I always thought that Terraria was a really pleasant game to look at. The color palette is just so diverse and distinct, while everything has a unique design (not to mention the tons of different enemies, items, etc.). The backgrounds are really cool as well; the boss battles are both intense to play and a spectacle to look at. Honestly, the appearance of the game was the reason I wanted to try it out in the first place.
 

Michael Bottos

Roller of Dice
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Oct 18, 2016
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Skyrim. I often didn't use the fast-travel option between landmarks and cities because I wanted to enjoy the scenery.
 
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Lanxide

I wish I was cool
Feb 3, 2016
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Star Ocean til the ends of time.
I don't remember much about the game but I was highly impressed over the graphics when I was younger especially during the Sphere 211 section of the game.
 

TyphlUpgrade

When the Eleven-Day Empire eats the sky...
Crowdfund Backer
I love the aesthetic of Night in the Woods. It's simplistic, but still manages to get details across without clutter. Everything is made of basic shapes, but still manages to look like what it's supposed to look like (and also is an allusion to one of the themes). The art style reaches that perfect boundary between detail and uncomplicated.
 
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Gecko Tony

Forum Noob
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Mar 17, 2016
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Gorgeous is definitely not a word for this game, but Darkest Dungeon definitely has an extremely eerie and shadowy art style that fits the experience perfectly.
 

Shadow of Death

Grushdeva Du Kalt Misht
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Feb 3, 2016
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I'm terrible at thinking of things offhand like this. I've definitely played some games with sweet graphics.

I will mention the Bioshock games. Specifically the first two, the ones set underwater in Rapture. I didn't care nearly so much for the art direction in Infinite, though graphically it's superior simply for coming out after the fact. There are remastered versions of the first two Bioshock games incidentally.

Skyrim. I often didn't use the fast-travel option between landmarks and cities because I wanted to enjoy the scenery.
It's even better when you modify the heck out of it.

I've never gone crazy with the mods, but Skyrim (and even Oblivion for that matter) can turn into something remarkable with the right graphical mods. I have a ~hour long video up on YT that just shows the ambiance, it is modded, though not ridiculously so. The wisps of fog, the aurora, the slow transition from night to day...

Hell, even vanilla Special Edition can look pretty frikken sweet if you downsample. I'm really looking forward to what sort of awesome TESVI, whenever it comes out, will offer us.
 
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Shadow of Death

Grushdeva Du Kalt Misht
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Feb 3, 2016
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Oh, double post madness! I just thought of a game that I remember for really appreciating the graphics.

Horizon: Zero Dawn. I was playing it on our new UHDTV, and even though I only had an original PS3 (so it didn't render it in UHD), it did at least offer HDR. The game looked damned nice. I would sometimes just pan the camera around to look at the scenery, especially the distant vistas.
 
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Pom d'or

Gave himself a fake award
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Feb 6, 2016
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Odin Sphere, maybe.
I don't even think I enjoyed that game very much, I just kept playing, back in the day, because I wanted to keep looking at it.
I haven't even seen the remake (I'm afraid I might get sucked in again).
If only the gameplay had been as calm and gentle as those environments looked!
 

Fimbulvinter

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Feb 4, 2016
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Limbo for its perfect use of limited colour pallet.
Windwaker's very nice use of cel-shading to bring a cartoon to life.
Crysis is of course a standard answer to high fidelity graphics game questions. Not the best game out there, but you have to admire the power of its engine.
Myst, because when it came out, there was simply nothing else quite like it in terms of detail to the screens and backgrounds.

Most recently, Bendy and the Ink Machine for its very bold and well done art style, bringing the old school Disney/Fleischer look back in a big way, and Subnautica which totally nails the alien vibe of the planet you wind up on.
 
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