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curl-6 on 08 January 2012
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RolStoppable said:
d21lewis said:
About Zelda's graphics, though. They are pretty bad. I don't notice them much anymore but they are early PS2 quality at times. I played Kirby's Epic Yarn and that game really wowed me. Fired up Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 and I was impressed. Same with Metroid 3, Punch Out, Smash Bros., Zack and Wiki, etc. I don't think I'm a graphics whore (yet!) but I don't think this game lives up to many Gamecube games--not even Starfox Adventures or Metroid Prime.

It's obvious that we're supposed to be blown away when we see Skyloft or that giant fish monster. It's not the case. The absorbing gameplay makes up for it, though. I didn't like the graphics at first but now, I barely notice them. And the way I flip-flop, I'll probably be saying it's the graphics king of this generation before I'm done.

Nintendo's inhouse developers have never been especially good at using the graphical capabilities of their various systems to the fullest, except for the NES (Super Mario Bros. 3) where the means were simple and differences couldn't be all that significant. On the SNES and N64, Rare led the pack; on the Gamecube it was Rare and Retro; on the Wii it's Retro again. Nintendo's EAD Tokyo comes close with the Super Mario Galaxy games, but having everything floating in space helps a lot in saving processing power for the backgrounds (which don't exist at all for the most part).

Another thing that works against Skyward Sword is its artstyle. With cel-shading you can forget about most bump- and normalmapping, because it wouldn't fit with the style. Lighting also takes a hit and there's only so much you can do with metallic objects and surfaces without making them look out of place with the rest of the graphics. All this by default makes the graphics look less impressive from a technical perspective.


Rare and Retro did not lead the graphics pack on Gamecube; Factor 5 outdid them both.

And Skyward Sword does have some bumpmapping, for example on the Goddess Cubes and their chests and Tentalus's tentacles.