What do you guys think is the most ugly NES game around? I personally think Dragon Warrior is SO ugly. The sprites look horrible, there's no black border around them, so that makes it even worse. Also, when you go on the world map, you can see horrible tile lines around the towns. They don't bother to make it so the black part of the town will be the color of the grass, so it will look nice. SMB1 looks pretty bad as well. I was playing SMB3 yesterday (Which I beat for the first time straight through, every single level, took 5 hours), and I noticed that the graphics look wonderful, but the attribute updates look horrible. I know it probably can't be helped, but it still looks bad. What do you guys think?
Celius wrote:
SMB1 looks pretty bad as well.
Look how much memory cost back then. Are you playing with or without a CHR hack?
Quote:
I was playing SMB3 yesterday (Which I beat for the first time straight through, every single level, took 5 hours), and I noticed that the graphics look wonderful, but the attribute updates look horrible. I know it probably can't be helped, but it still looks bad.
Actually, SMB3 could have hid its nametable updates more in the mask. There's an x-off-by-one error in the update.
The first games were really simple and undetailed, and it has little to do with the ammount of memory. Most of the time it is not a matter of how many tiles you have, but how well drawn they are. Sometimes we see GFX hacks of older games and they can look wonderful, just by lifting up the tiles and palettes a bit.
We shouldn't blame older artists, though. For the time, those were OK graphics. Back in the beginning people were used to atari 2600 kind of graphics, where outlines were something forbidden. When the NES first showed up, artists took it from there, but using the new capabilities of the newer hardware. With time they learned to use dithering, outlines, and such things that usually make graphics look better. After a while, people noticed that cartoon'ish graphics looked really well on the NES, and that was used a lot.
I guess it takes a while for the people in the game industry to realize the capacity of new systems. And when the system is finally mastered, a new one comes along. And the games of the previous system still get even better, as they try to mimic the games of the newer one. And eventually the system dies.
Celius wrote:
What do you guys think is the most ugly NES game around? I personally think Dragon Warrior is SO ugly. The sprites look horrible, there's no black border around them, so that makes it even worse. Also, when you go on the world map, you can see horrible tile lines around the towns. They don't bother to make it so the black part of the town will be the color of the grass, so it will look nice. SMB1 looks pretty bad as well. I was playing SMB3 yesterday (Which I beat for the first time straight through, every single level, took 5 hours), and I noticed that the graphics look wonderful, but the attribute updates look horrible. I know it probably can't be helped, but it still looks bad. What do you guys think?
If you thought Dragon Warrior was ugly, wait until you see Dragon Quest, the Japanese version.
Winter Games and Double Dribble were quite ugly.
I said all that about older games and such but... there are some newer games with terrible graphics too. Those should be pointed out. Although I can't think of any names, as I tend to forget the name of bad games. Well, not that all games with bad graphics have bad gameplay, but that is usually the case, and I don't waste space in my head remembering bad games.
Paperboy, too, look just so ugly.
Dragon Quest has worse graphics than Dragon Warrior, because people only faces one direction, and the water has no border.
However, you'll have to notice that top-down games didn't really exists back then, the only one that was there before DQ was Ultima, I think.
However, what saves the graphics of Dragon Quest/Warrior to be pure horrible is how detailed the monsters are. For the early time, it was very good I think.
tokumaru wrote:
I said all that about older games and such but... there are some newer games with terrible graphics too. Those should be pointed out. Although I can't think of any names, as I tend to forget the name of bad games. Well, not that all games with bad graphics have bad gameplay, but that is usually the case, and I don't waste space in my head remembering bad games.
You pretty much described Cheetahmen II there. That's a pretty awful game. When I first heard abou it, I didn't realize that it was sought after for rarity. I thought people liked this game. So I booted it up in an emu to see what all the fuss was about this game. I wasn't impressed, that's for sure.
As for a licensed game that doesn't look very good... Hudson Hawk is one for sure.
Well, I agree with tokumaru that memory size didn't have much to do with it. Even though the graphics are reused beyond belief, they still could have made those reused graphics better. But it's true that they were used to atari 2600 graphics back then when the NES was new and dominated the gaming industry (Oh, how I wish this still were true...).
Okay, I'm deciding to not make a new forum for this, but I'm going to ask a new question. What game on the NES do you think has some of the best AI for it's time? My answer: Pacman. Those ghosts will always get you. They probably do something really uncomplicated for that, but I can't figure it out. AI is something I've always thought was amazing. Something I'm not very good at programming. Is it just me? Or is programming AI extremely difficult for you?
Celius wrote:
What game on the NES do you think has some of the best AI for it's time? My answer: Pacman. Those ghosts will always get you.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think enemies that will
always get you have good AI. Having the enemies always do the right thing is the easiest kind of AI, in my opinion.
Well, programming them to follow the shortest, nearest, most pac-man-trapping path must be quite difficult.
Sure, but having ennemies sometimes get a break to the player will be better, unlike what you'd think at first. It looks more "user friendly".
Fire Emblem and Fire Emblem Gaiden have really really great AI. They are without a doubt the best games in that category for the NES.
ugly NES games:
- The Lion King
- Barbie...
- King Neptune's Adventure
- Cheetah men II
- Action 52.
sdm wrote:
ugly NES games:
- The Lion King
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo ive always loved that game!!! my friend and i STILL play that one! what i hate about it..... how there's no passwords or anything! its like they want you to sit there for 10 hours playing! (yah, it takes us that long....we've still never beaten it cuz that lava level is hard!)
i think that crash test dummies is the ugliest. eww. i love the music at the beginning though! HAHAHA
Ugly games:
Hydlide. Ugly. And stupid too.
MUSCLE.
Conan, 'cause they merely ported C-64 graphics.
Total Recall
And many, many early Famicom games...
But as simple as the graphics for SMB1 are, I think they look really great even today. Everything is iconic.