Is Hardware getting TOO Powerful?

[Chrkeller]

Leynos said:

 I put Blue Stinger in my Dreamcast last night. I could have a conversation elsewhere where I know Dead Space ripped off the Necromorphs from BS but that's not what I came to talk about.

I realize I am a huge fan of the Dreamcast and I love it so a part of me sees the games through the eyes of my teenage self when I first experience that system every time. Blue Stinger a launch game for DC now looks so insanely dated. That said in 1999 this was blowing people's minds. It had a crisp look to it not blurry like N64 games. Textures were sharp and not warping like PS1 games. Our main character had individual fingers whereas at the time human models always had blocky clubs for hands. The main character has strands of hair sticking out not a texture or blocky whatever like a Goldeneye. Pretty good animation and his lips moved while talking. Again unheard of back then. Within a few months, Shenmue blew it out of the water and Shenmue become not just the best-looking and most technically impressive console game but anywhere even on PC. It all looks so old now. My brain was just over the moon and this is a time magazines were saying we swear Sonic Adventure and Shenmue are not pre-rendered cutscenes like FF, it looks this good! We were young. (btw ZOE2 still looks amazing)

Now I played Final Fantasy XVI. It looks nice. I wish it ran better but it looks...nice but I was more impressed with XII when it launched on PS2 (talking standard environments like towns and people). As cool as the Eikon fights are, I'm more impressed with what is happening than how it looks on the technical side. Consoles are so powerful now all those little things that blew me away in Shenmue or Blue Stinger, are the standard now. When 3D was still new achieving realism was a noble goal. Now I just feel like lighting and stuff is great but it should not be the selling point anymore of the visuals. Look at Hi-Fi Rush. ToTK. Path of the Goddess. Bloodborne. Beautiful art styles. Bloodborne is what Nightmare Creatures wished it could look like. Consoles now have the power to truly sell really imaginative-looking games with all sorts of cool mechanics not possible in years past. Yet it's kinda sad when a game showcase is filled with bland-looking "realistic" FPS games that are all looking the same. Not saying there isn't a place for those games but you have all these tools to make something amazing and at least a 3rd if not half of those showcases are half a dozen games that look exactly the same.

Blue Stinger was such a terrible game.  Best DC games was Skies of Arcadia.