I'd like to discuss graphics/video. More than graphics, the evolution and design of such. Here's my first discussion.
First, I love Chrono Trigger. And Crimson Echoes. Those are my favorite games. I liked the Super NES. It was easy in that every 'super' game on the console had better graphics than the NES. Everything about every game sequel was better in almost every way shape and form. Easy. It was a straight upgrade over the spectrum.
Then came the 5th generation of consoles. The N64, PSX, Jaguar, Saturn, etc. I'll stick with the PSX and N64 for now. Games were 2d in Super NES, mostly. Games like Donkey Kong Country used 3d rendering and the sprites were very well done. Yet when we went to the PSX, we got gross polygons. It was a necessary stepping stone. And lots of PSX games has multiple graphic levels. FMVs we called em. Final Fantasy 7 had cool graphics in battle, amazing FMVs but the around town walking had characters with no fingers and no mouths. And consider Tekken for the PSX. I personally felt gaming had to make a transition and for the time went through a 'downgrade'. I said when I was 10 that Donkey Kong Country had better graphics than Final Fantasy 7. The newer console the Playstation was actually WORSE than the predecessor. Now eventually the PSX graphics got better. FF8 and Parasite Eve had more detail, the characters walking had distinct hands opposed to rectangles (dont get me wrong I LOVE FF7 but the graphics were something to be overlooked, not praised). Even so, there was that one SNES hockey game with a video taken from live TV, graphical quality better than an ff8 FMV. So I said, cartridge games are better, no load time and graphics can be better.
So I prefered the n64, having NOT owned one, I got a PSX for free instead.
The n64. the doom of graphics and the death of zelda as we knew it. Its graphics were inferior to the PSX but at least they looked the same all the time, take goldeneye. But then we had that...that n64 animation. You know. When a ghost or something floats. Not only does it bob up and down, but its arms float out, like when a person breathes their ribs expanding push their arms out noticably. Its a plague that affected all nintendo consoles even through the Wii, your armless (not handless) characters just sort of float and bloat all the time.
And then the kiddie style of the n64 graphics. Zelda 1, 2 and (SNES) 3 were...do I call em mature games? no, but they were trying to be more serious. zelda's ocarina of time left no guesswork it was a kiddie game, with the voices like from mario 64, making it with its fake voices (like when you talk to a 3 year old in baby talk- no one ACTUALLY talks like this in person, its staged.) I compared it to old cartoons, such as Scooby Doo when it was hand drawn and the voices were the person's actual voice for lots of the characters. But take the Anime Lucky star, where NO one talks in actuality like a teenager (they use old people to voice children and children to voice old people) and the hair covers the iris of your eye, but not the pupil, and your eyebrows float out front. Again, I like Lucky Star, but this is how lots of anime is. What I'm getting at is Scooby Doo is 50 years older yet still has BETTER graphics than most cartoons that are generations more advanced. Why can't these animation programs do as well as frame by frame drawing, is this really progress?? So it was the same with n64. fake voices, unaccurate animation in the sake of styling (like how Super Mario World was progress for Mario 3, but Mario WOrld 2: Yoshi's island is a step backwards.) I feel the older games were drawn better.
So the PSX and n64 for me were not the jump forward the SNES was compared to the NES, but a side step, one backwards in my opinion. This does make Chrono Trigger a bit of a 'relative' pinnacle for the 90s. Its special effects were improved upon in the latest SNES games, but its animation style for me was better than some games that are considerably newer.
And I can compare again. Half Life mod Team Fortress. They progressed and progressed to make it newer but they "N64'd it up) making TF2. They claim the graphics took more power?? Looks like you made TFC and they went into DOS and hit "max colors = 32" and enter. Total regression.
Back to Chrono Trigger as an example:
Here's what I see lately. I saw that Chrono...Break was it? The concept of remaking CT on n64 style graphics. It showed a 3d rendering of the millenial fair. and a close up of gaspar doing the breathing with that japanese style snot bubble out his nose (i guess thats what it is?). no mouth or nose if i recall. this is what i mean. this is not progress for chrono trigger. Yeah its 3d but for me I wouldn't like to play it because the animation style would drive me nuts.
As an aside, I liked CT's graphics but never cared for the animation drawings done by Akira Toriyama. Not a fan of the specific anime style, i never watched anime as a kid, i didnt get into it till like 2010 opposed to other gamers i knew who were into it years before.
So I join here. I saw that someone tried to build the millenial fair in the VALVE engine. Gotcha. And again, looks like a half step up over Minecraft. i'm glad it was done but its so color-limited and cartooney that if i werent a devout fan, i might not have recognized it and been like "oh that's guardia in 1000 AD".
Turns out there's lots of these attempted 3d CT remakes. I saw some years ago. When I finally found out about Crimson Echoes, I jumped for joy. ANd when I first played it, I was freaking exstatic. Like...wow a geniuine sequel! And its not for Xbox download so they didn't fuck it up with 'achievement' popups like when they screwed up Megaman 9 and 10. I was like all you have to do is make another megaman and not mess it up. and you messed it up with damn popups. Just give me 8 new bosses. Yeah I was a blue bomber fan. And Crimson Echoes was phenominal. A CT sequel with none of the modern crap to mess it up, no anime scenes, no stupid modern achievements, just a "Chrono Trigger 2" was all it was and I loved it. Thanks so much Zeality, Agent 12 and Chrono99 for not doing anything stupid with the graphics. I mean you changed the character's profiles a bit as they aged just a tad so that was ok.
Now I've seen the 'serious' games. The evolution of say Grand Theft Auto. When they made 3, it was a little blurred by modern standards but they were going for realism. 4 was more real. 5 was more real. then you see like the newest Call of Duty game. Super real. Nice job making it real, I see that's what they were after.
I understand the remakes of CT in basic color shading n64 style for 3d is easier, but Zeality set the bar real high. I bet if everyone on here worked their asses off, I bet we could make a 3d version of Chrono Trigger based off SNES-progressive expectations. In other words, like what the ff7 remake looks like. Maybe not of that caliber as im sure Squaresoft put some money into that...but maybe by Chrono Cross level graphics, not the cartooney 'stylized' stuff in halflife 2 or n64/gamecube/wii style, but somethin youd buy for the ps3/4.
So consider this:
What if son of a bitch I forgot the whole point of what I was going to write here as its been half an hour now. I'll edit this if I remember.
Anyone understand why I consider the ff7 remake 'evolution' and chrono break 'devolution' though? No offense to the creators of that, just saying if i could like donate money if we could make it look like a real 3d guardia.
