What do you guys think of this old PSX era graphics?

[Gerrard]

Let's be real. On technical levels, when an indie game is described as "PS1 Style" they actually mean Quake 1 on DOS.



The PS1 had very limited hardware leading to games only running at 30 fps cap even at a very low view distance and pre-rendered backgrounds, while Quake looks very smooth by comparison whch looks more on par with these 'PS1 style' indies

No, there is nothing that compares to PS1's atrocious jello wobble. I don't think anyone would want to emulate this shit "style" on purpose.

 

[MasterofThunder]

Ironically, even if they manage to come close to the rendering style of the PS1, the performance of their game would be 1000x worse than a genuine PS1 title. Because they use Unity or Unreal, and with spaghetti code no doubt. I am certain a game like Compound Fracture would run at 1000+ FPS, despite it's primitive visuals.

There is little benefit to have an "indie PS1" game. You really do get the worst of all worlds. Low effort visuals combined with the performance of a modern AAA game.

 

[NecroLord]

They had a certain primitive charm.
Back then we didn't give a fuck about cool, ultra realistic graphics (at least not me).

 

[911 Jumper]

PS1 was my first console and my entry point into this hobby, so the nostalgia will always be there, even though I haven't played a PS1 game for almost 20 years.
That said, seeing the recent news about Fear Effect getting ported to current gen platforms once again reminded me of the experimental culture that existed during the PS1 era. It also reminded me of how many interesting PS1 games I missed out on because of my lack of knowledge (at the time) and limited funds.

 

[NecroLord]

PS1 was my first console and my entry point into this hobby, so the nostalgia will always be there, even though I haven't played a PS1 game for almost 20 years.
That said, seeing the recent news about Fear Effect getting ported to current gen platforms once again reminded me of the experimental culture that existed during the PS1 era. It also reminded me of how many interesting PS1 games I missed out on because of my lack of knowledge (at the time) and limited funds.

Same.
The best console (for nostalgic reasons for me).
Castlevania games, especially Symphony of the Night, used to play it religiously.
Star Trek: Invasion was also a pretty good one.
Mortal Kombat games, also used to play them like there was no tomorrow.
Legend of Legaia is a really good game, I highly recommend you play this one. It's sort of a jrpg/fighting hybrid.
A lot of good titles for the PS1.

 

[gabel]

Twisted Metal 2 (/World Tour) was fucking dope.

 

[flyingjohn]

That said, seeing the recent news about Fear Effect getting ported to current gen platforms once again reminded me of the experimental culture that existed during the PS1 era.

The ps1 was the only console in existence that was easy to program for and superior technologically to its competitors ( Dreamcast was a different thing). Couple that with Ken setting up the trap of allowing anybody to make games for it, it is no wonder the era produced the best console games of all time.

 

[Saldrone]

I liked Dino Crisis. A survival horror about jurassic predators could be much more than just "Resident Evil with Dinosaurs"

 

[NecroLord]

I liked Dino Crisis. A survival horror about jurassic predators could be much more than just "Resident Evil with Dinosaurs"

Dino Crisis 1 and 2, though 2 is way more action/shooting than puzzle solving the way the first game was.
Resident Evil Trilogy.
Like I said, SO MANY good stuff.

 

[CyberWhale]

-First and foremost, costs little time and money to produce by comparison to everything that came after!

This pretty much sums it up. It is a natural and logical progression for small indie developers who were previously stuck to 2D pixel titles. It is cheap, feasible to do (especially with modern tools), and can easily create coherent visuals - something that many, even bigger studios, fail to achieve when developing with latest tech.

I don't mind the emulation of hardware related artifacts like texture banding and scanlines, as long as you can disable/modify them in the options menu.

 

[CyberWhale]

There is little benefit to have an "indie PS1" game. You really do get the worst of all worlds. Low effort visuals combined with the performance of a modern AAA game.

That is partially true when talking about bad and unoptimized code, but you also have to take into the consideration that most of these games are not running on the hardware level, but are rather developed for modern OS. You can't circumvent that, even if you are skilled enough to write optimized code. Hypothetically, let's say you develop a game for the original hardware (and in the process completely sabotage yourself from reaching wider audiences), most people would still opt to play it on the PC, so not only do you have to run it on a more powerful hardware because of the modern OS, you need to add an imperfect emulation layer on top of it as well.

The benefit is clear as stated above (and by Ash previously) - cheap and easy way to create visuals even if you are not a professional 3D modeler. Perfect match for small indie developers.

 

[Jigby]

Just in the last couple years we had Alisa, Bloodborne demake, Nightmare of Decay, Sirena Expedition, Lunistice and lots of other forgettable trash. Signalis arguably. Nightmare Cart and Crow County just came out.

Good thread, I knew of Crow Country, but not the rest. Keep the suggestions coming

 

[Ash]

I liked Dino Crisis. A survival horror about jurassic predators could be much more than just "Resident Evil with Dinosaurs"

Yeah no. Sadly it was more like "Resident Evil v0.5 with Dinosaurs". Blind people love the game in droves, because dinosaurs or something. It's mediocre and not at all a great representation of the many, many great games on the platform, nor of the era in general (late 90s golden age peak).

Same.
The best console (for nostalgic reasons for me).

Keep playing. It's the best console by a mile, providing you play the correct games.

 

[Morenatsu.]

ALL psx games are the correct games

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

There is something interesting about that general era. It's not quite early 3D any longer, no more solid blocks. The primitive 3D models along with basically pixel art textures is an interesting look, sort of a hybrid between when 3D would get actually good and the best of what 2D could do. Despite the horror aspect, you can really see this in something like Resident Evil, but it seems more common in Japanese games rather than western games. Western games really had this focus on cramming as much detail as they could into those textures, something I think modern texture artists could really learn from.

Pre-rendered backgrounds are nice and all, but on consoles a lot of them looked like plastic, especially if they were pre-rendered humans. They're more there for mood than anything else.

 

[Poseidon00]

PS1 was my first console and my entry point into this hobby, so the nostalgia will always be there, even though I haven't played a PS1 game for almost 20 years.
That said, seeing the recent news about Fear Effect getting ported to current gen platforms once again reminded me of the experimental culture that existed during the PS1 era. It also reminded me of how many interesting PS1 games I missed out on because of my lack of knowledge (at the time) and limited funds.

Same.
The best console (for nostalgic reasons for me).
Castlevania games, especially Symphony of the Night, used to play it religiously.
Star Trek: Invasion was also a pretty good one.
Mortal Kombat games, also used to play them like there was no tomorrow.
Legend of Legaia is a really good game, I highly recommend you play this one. It's sort of a jrpg/fighting hybrid.
A lot of good titles for the PS1.

Legend of Legaia is definitely underrated. Nobody talks about it but it did a lot of interesting things with its combat system that makes it much better, at least in my opinion, than the average turn based battle. Fights look good to watch, which is a damn accomplishment on PS1. And an interesting enough story to keep you engaged.

 

[NecroLord]

PS1 was my first console and my entry point into this hobby, so the nostalgia will always be there, even though I haven't played a PS1 game for almost 20 years.
That said, seeing the recent news about Fear Effect getting ported to current gen platforms once again reminded me of the experimental culture that existed during the PS1 era. It also reminded me of how many interesting PS1 games I missed out on because of my lack of knowledge (at the time) and limited funds.

Same.
The best console (for nostalgic reasons for me).
Castlevania games, especially Symphony of the Night, used to play it religiously.
Star Trek: Invasion was also a pretty good one.
Mortal Kombat games, also used to play them like there was no tomorrow.
Legend of Legaia is a really good game, I highly recommend you play this one. It's sort of a jrpg/fighting hybrid.
A lot of good titles for the PS1.

Legend of Legaia is definitely underrated. Nobody talks about it but it did a lot of interesting things with its combat system that makes it much better, at least in my opinion, than the average turn based battle. Fights look good to watch, which is a damn accomplishment on PS1. And an interesting enough story to keep you engaged.

Indeed.
Many cool fights against a variety of opponents, along with an interesting story and some colorful characters.

 

[Sigourn]

Does anyone actually miss these?
I kinda like it, but it's missing a few important features. For example there's no scanlines in it, they need to insert them inbetween the pixels (not overlay them).
And maybe possibly the wobble (would need to see that in action).

I love that style. Looks much better than trash like Daggerfall.

 

[Beastro]

Combining that and the PSXs use of sound, atmosphere never came close to PSX games again.

Even great ones immediately after, like Thief, still lacked that odd sense of otherworldliness.

It made some games awesome in how lonely and isolated you felt.



Also made them weird in other ways:

 

[kangaxx]

That game looks utter wank, but if you look at this you can see it was possible to make things look OK on that console:

 

[Ash]

All the 3D games look kinda wank. But again it is BEYOND beside the point.

-One half of the peak golden era of game design (late 90s), the other half being PC.
-The devs focused on other far more important things instead, they had no choice lol.
-The technical limitations often worked in their favor, e.g limited draw distance = hardcore navigation gameplay, high tension etc.
-Like beastro above said, otherworldly. Some games had absolutely wild vibes and immersion. Visuals were often abstract, gameplay could often be described that way too, to great benefit. Not bound by the limiting rules of reality, rules which are a natural byproduct of more realistic/higher detail graphics. No games do Doom monster closets anymore. Why? Graphics and realism faggotry. It has gameplay merit, but no, it has to go they say (or be hidden behind some elaborate scripted setup that took a whole week to make that has to make realistic sense - these are limiting rules).
-Lastly, something I often forget to mention somehow, but it is also the peak of music in this interactive art form too. CD-ROM in gaming was mostly new here, and they took full advantage of the new space and level of quality. Not to mention the creative musical juices that were also next level in the time period - electronic music was still fresh and absolute sensation worldwide, there was a whole culture in the air to it, people revolved their lives around music en-masse it was that impactful, not the boring soul-sucking slop it is today, or else forced underground. Immediately after by the PS2 era music was already getting neutered hard into meaningless generic background noise by comparison. 90s composers used music to enhance the story, atmosphere and gameplay, one of few more modern popular comparisons I can point to is Jeremy Soule, whom is the only high quality aspect AT ALL of both Oblivion and Skyrim. Without that I wouldn't last 5 hours without turning to the wall to watch paint dry as a better alternative. Instead it carried me to 30 hours in 2011 (Oblivion soundtrack was better though - so good it gives me nostalgia for a game I loathe and have barely played for more than 30% of it. Nothing more to see after that anyway!).

Play Tomb Raider. Play Doom PSX (or PC, but the atmosphere is 10x thicker PSX). Play Silent Hill. Good starter pack into why this (alongside what was happening on PC) will always represent the peak of 3D game design despite being early days. Shortly after everything became about realism, graphics, story, multiplayer, and selling out to the lowest common denominator with braindead game design. NOT true singleplayer game design with integrity. Exceptions of course apply.
This is of course without getting into the absolute brilliance of the 2D/Pre-rendered/Hybrid-visual games on the system. But I already gave those some focus prior.

 

[kangaxx]

Ash you're right but I think the OP was talking just about looks.

 

[Ash]

Don't care. Have to compensate for the awful start to this thread and make it an awesome + true to reality one. Gets really annoying living among zombies with poor interpretation and comprehension of the world!

 

[Beans00]

Same.
The best console (for nostalgic reasons for me).
Castlevania games, especially Symphony of the Night, used to play it religiously.
Star Trek: Invasion was also a pretty good one.
Mortal Kombat games, also used to play them like there was no tomorrow.
Legend of Legaia is a really good game, I highly recommend you play this one. It's sort of a jrpg/fighting hybrid.
A lot of good titles for the PS1.

Issue with the ps1, and even worse on the ps2. Because the console was so successful(100m and 150m sales), and because budgets hadn't ballooned to ridiculous team sizes yet, like with the 7th gen. There was so much unplayable shovelware on the ps1/ps2.

Ps1 games were super cheap compared to most other consoles, and even pc games. We also got the ps1 a bit late into the lifespan(christmas 99). I probably had 35 games for the ps1, give or take.

Out of those, probably 10 were heavy hitters a lot of people had.
Gran turismo, metal gear solid, silent hill, resident evil 3, a bunch of final fantasy games, a few sports games, castlevania SOTN, mega man x4... ect

Then I probably had 5 random games that were pretty solid. Oddball games, that weren't really hyped. Vehicular combat games like rogue trip of vigilante 8, vandal hearts which I guess was a pretty good fire elblem knock off.

Then the other 20 games were the most unplayable shovelware garbage, probably made by teams of 10 people just hoping stupid kids like me would pick their games out and buy them. Every console had shovelware, but the ps1(and the ps2 was probably worse for this) had ALOT of shovelware. Victim of its own success.

The ps1 was still the king of the 5th gen though. The n64 had like... 5 games worth playing, and the saturn was dead by like 1997.

I had a lot of shit like this







Funny thing, there's poor souls in every one of those youtube comment sections saying how they liked these games as kids. I guess we all had some trash game we enjoyed for some reason, my next FPS thread might need to be about my bad game I liked.

 

[NecroLord]

Same.
The best console (for nostalgic reasons for me).
Castlevania games, especially Symphony of the Night, used to play it religiously.
Star Trek: Invasion was also a pretty good one.
Mortal Kombat games, also used to play them like there was no tomorrow.
Legend of Legaia is a really good game, I highly recommend you play this one. It's sort of a jrpg/fighting hybrid.
A lot of good titles for the PS1.

Issue with the ps1, and even worse on the ps2. Because the console was so successful(100m and 150m sales), and because budgets hadn't ballooned to ridiculous team sizes yet, like with the 7th gen. There was so much unplayable shovelware on the ps1/ps2.

Ps1 games were super cheap compared to most other consoles, and even pc games. We also got the ps1 a bit late into the lifespan(christmas 99). I probably had 35 games for the ps1, give or take.

Out of those, probably 10 were heavy hitters a lot of people had.
Gran turismo, metal gear solid, silent hill, resident evil 3, a bunch of final fantasy games, a few sports games, castlevania SOTN, mega man x4... ect

Then I probably had 5 random games that were pretty solid. Oddball games, that weren't really hyped. Vehicular combat games like rogue trip of vigilante 8, vandal hearts which I guess was a pretty good fire elblem knock off.

Then the other 20 games were the most unplayable shovelware garbage, probably made by teams of 10 people just hoping stupid kids like me would pick their games out and buy them. Every console had shovelware, but the ps1(and the ps2 was probably worse for this) had ALOT of shovelware. Victim of its own success.

The ps1 was still the king of the 5th gen though. The n64 had like... 5 games worth playing, and the saturn was dead by like 1997.

I had a lot of shit like this







Funny thing, there's poor souls in every one of those youtube comment sections saying how they liked these games as kids. I guess we all had some trash game we enjoyed for some reason, my next FPS thread might need to be about my bad game I liked.

That was the jank right there.