Comment by buildzr
6 years ago
> that people still think looks good
I saw some people suggesting this last time, but I actually found the games referenced looked worse than his games.
I mean, you tell me...
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/691830/ss_d499ccc...
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-O4qcf4H_x1k/XWRVHrVMvII/AAAAAAAAB...
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IBv08R44oKE/XWRSJefoKxI/AAAAAAAAB...
Stuff like this is pure opinion.
Especially if you compare to say, his latest Avernum series, I find this is the case. Personally, I'm kind of sick of pixel art and I find his style generally pretty good, if occasionally a little inconsistent, it doesn't distract from gameplay. Many of the referenced screenshots are against this upcoming title which has gone to a different style, so it'll be interesting to see how that goes.
Although both Undertale and Celeste look bad IMO, they both use pixel art and it's not fair to compare pixel art after resizing it and destroying the pixel-level detail.
Maybe in screenshots they look bad, but Celeste looks great it motion. Lots of good lighting effects, motion effects, and other things that make it look modern.
Undertale has really basic art in certain sections (like in the provided screenshot), but it really ups the detail in a lot of areas (especially certain boss fights) that again, make it look modern and better then the authors games.
>Lots of good lighting effects, motion effects, and other things that make it look modern.
The trouble with those effects is that they run at high resolution, which calls attention to the low resolution of rest of the art. I much prefer a consistent art style like Shovel Knight (still the best looking modern pixel-art game IMO), where it's all low resolution. Celeste also uses that hideous cartoon style for the characters, where the noses are solid red. It looks like they have a contagious disease.
Undertale has the same problem with inconsistent styles, but the inconsistencies are less frequent, and the character designs are better, so I prefer it to Celeste, but I still wouldn't call it good. It's like an inferior version of Earthbound, and Earthbound was criticized for its primitive graphics 24 years ago.