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curl-6 on 06 January 2014
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Michael-5 said:
curl-6 said:

Since platforming by its very nature is essentially "fighting gravity", having that gravity be spherical, or switching locally in real time compared to always being straight down is, in my view, as big a difference as going from baddies that just charge you in 1993 Doom to baddies that take cover, flank you, and work in a team like in today's better FPS games.

And art direction is subjective, so fair enough. I would argue, however, that SM64's art direction is restricted by its tech here; if they'd have Wii level graphics whose to say Bowser wouldn't be rounded? It may have just been N64's polygon ceiling that made him angular.

Well I disagree, I feel a platformer is only as fun as the level design, gameplay (Yoshi in Galaxy 2 is awesome), and level of challenge. I for example don't care much for LittleBigPlanet because the gameplay is a bit too basic for me, and just not my style.

As for Bowser looking bad-ass, you might be right but when you look at the remake he doesn't look all soft and round.

Compared to:

I think the best way to judge how Bowser in Super Mario 64 would have looked like had more powerful systems been around is by looking at the art direction. This is modern era Bowser:

and this is Bowser on N64:

See how much skinnier the old Bowser was? His horns were bigger, teeth were bigger, and his spikes were even longer and pointier. New Bowser is old Bowser in softer colours and stretched horizontally.

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This applies for a lot of Nintendo games as well. Skyward Sword and Wind Waker has a softer colour palet and a more cheerful Link then Ocarina of Time 3D or Twilight Princess.

P.S. Bowser on N64 looks like the product of incest.....I wanted to kill him to rid the world of such horror.

I'd agree a platformer is as fun as its level design, but I'd count gravity as part of that design.

As for Bowser the CGI N64-era Bowser looks nothing like the in-game one even in terms of shape or proportion, which convinces me even more that it was more a technical issue of polygon pushing capability.