The Discussion Thread: The Greatest Games Event 2017 - FINISH YOUR LISTS

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Mnementh said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

Ironically, I have a personal pet peeve about games from the PS1/N64 generation (gen 5).  I just think their graphics have aged horribly, worse than even gen 4 or gen 3 games.

I have a theory about that. I think every new technological step needs to be explored to get the possibilities. There are technological possibilities to discover. But even more important for gaming: there are artistic possibilities to discover. Early on these experiences have to be made, so the medium/technology isn't used to it's potential. As the artist learn how things work out, this gets better.

For gaming this means, with 2D- and 3D-graphics we had such technological steps. But 2D was in the very early days of gaming. Barely anyone was around to remember. Gen 3 or 4 the artists already had experience with the technology, so they did good memorable stuff. With 3D they had to learn new how to do that. And this time a lot of gamers were around to remember the transition.

I think that for a game to age well, the artistic stuff is more important than the technological stuff. So an artistically well made 2D-game ages better than the first 3D-games were artists were still trying what they can do with their new options. If FF7 defies this, it means Square gave the people working on it enough time (meaning budget) to work things out. And they had artistical vision.

By the way, I probably should add FF7 to the should try-list. Many people seem to like the game and declare it the best of the series.

This explanation makes sense to me.  I also think it had another thing in it's favor, which is an artistic principle I learned in book called, "understanding comics" by Scott McCloud.  McCloud says that people like a highly detailed world, but that characters are easier to relate to when they are less detailed.  An extreme example is the smiley face, which has almost no details but everyone relates to it.  So some of the best comics choose to draw their characters simply while having highly detailed backgrounds. 

Final Fantasy VII does this thing throughout most of the game.  They had a hard time transitioning to 3D, so they decided to hand draw most of the background environments.  These hand drawings look beautiful.  At the same time the 3D character models look incredibly basic.  The result is that it is very easy to get immersed into the game world while still being able to relate to Cloud and the other characters, because they look so simple.