Which 1st-person RPGs (blobbers, etc) had the best fake-3D art?

[Alchemist]

I'm curious of people's opinions on this as I'm doing a bit of research for my own 1st-person blobber project. I'm trying to decide if I'm going the old-school fake-3D route (like Wizardry 1-7, Might & Magic 1-5, Bard's Tale, Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, Grimoire...) or using a real 3D view (like Might & Magic 6-10, Wizardry 8, Grimrock, etc..). By "fake-3D" I mean it's really 2D art tiles that are presented in a way to create the illusion of a 3D world in 1st-person view.

The goal of this thread to highlight which games you think were best at using the "fake-3D" approach, in the quality of the art and presentation - not necessarily the gameplay. So something like Lands of Lore 1 scores well here (in my opinion) - it has beautiful artwork but some may not like the real-time combat. This thread is only about the art.

Edit: The blobber genre used this style the most often - but feel free to mention single-character 1st-person RPGs as well.

 

[Sinatar]

Anvil of Dawn was the best looking 2d "blobber" IMO. Yea I know it's one character, but whatever.

 

[octavius]

Dungeon Master, due to the effect of light sources. The other games were binary; either it was light or it was darkness.

 

[Dorateen]

I love SSI, and would want to shout out the Gold Boxes, but...

That, to me, is gorgeous. (The art, not the Gorn.) And I always liked the tawny cobble stones featured in town locations, the dark grey stones of torch-lit dungeons.

 

[Jaesun]

Eye of the Beholder I and II. The wall and floor art for that was very well done, and gave the best "fake" 3D look/feel.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Do you mean the environments or the enemy / character artwork?

When it comes to the latter, I thought The Dark Spire for the DS was pretty great. (My current avatar is from that game.)

 

[Excidium II]

Why not go full 3D, but with fixed grid step and billboarded 2D objects? You can get the same look and feel of old school dungeon crawlers but with the benefit of 3D level building.

 

[Alchemist]

Do you mean the environments or the enemy artwork?

When it comes to the latter, I thought The Dark Spire for the DS was pretty great. (My current avatar is from that game.)

Well, a bit of both - but the environments are the bigger question in my mind. I already have pretty solid ideas on enemy artwork and mine will all be 2D hand-drawn (actually bearing some stylistic similarities to Dark Spire - which I agree looks awesome).

But making a good-looking, interactive fake-3D scene based on 2D art is the harder challenge. I'm investigating how various games have handled it and which ones did it well.

 

[Alchemist]

Dungeon Master, due to the effect of light sources. The other games were binary; either it was light or it was darkness.

Yeah variable lighting effects are key and I'm definitely planning to include that even if I go the 2D route. 2D real-time lighting is a lot easier to do these days.

Why not go full 3D, but with fixed grid step and billboarded 2D objects? You can get the same look and feel of old school dungeon crawlers but with the benefit of 3D level building.

That approach is still on the table - and the one I've been considering the most so far. It's probably easier to make the environment art assets that way. But there is a certain purity and visual coherence to a game with all-2D art (like in the older games) which I admire. Billboarded 2D sprites in a full 3D world are harder to get looking good. I still might do that though.

 

[Jasede]

I feel like Lands of Lore has the best visuals, but I am not sure if it qualifies as fake 3D.

Of course Anvil of Dawn is really pretty too, but in a different style. I think it exemplifies fake 3D a little better.

 

[mondblut]

The raging ignorance in this thread triggers me. Pls lock the posters above in the TES subforum Dung master my ass!

That's how a blobber should shyly dream of looking like. /thread

 

[Jasede]

I don't remember Ishar looking that good - is that the Amiga version? Makes me want to play it.

Edit: downloading Amiga version right now; too good to pass up and I got 2 months of vacation until the winter term

 

[made]

-Haha beat me to it. I got caught up fapping to Ishar gfx as I was editing the post.

 

[Sinatar]

Yea the Ishar games were lookers for sure.

 

[Jasede]

Do I want the normal or the AGA versions if Ishar? I can't remember what the difference was. The last time I owned an Amiga was 22 years ago (!)

 

[cvv]

Yeah, Silmarils (and the Frogs in general) had always the best art.

But I always thought graphics-wise Wizardry 7 was 5 years ahead of everyone. Somehow it's just look like a SVGA game from 1992.

 

[Alchemist]

Yeah Ishar is beautiful indeed - I've always admired the screenshots, never got around to playing it yet. I like how in the town scenes the buildings have variable heights and such.

 

[mondblut]

I don't remember Ishar looking that good - is that the Amiga version? Makes me want to play it.

Edit: downloading Amiga version right now; too good to pass up and I got 2 months of vacation until the winter term

Ishars are young enough, there shouldn't be any difference between PC and Amiga. I only played on PC, and they ever looked as gorgeous as these screenshots (pulled from all over internet, some might be Amiga, others aren't).

1 (and even more likely, Crystals of Arborea) might be prettier on Amiga, but I only posted 2 and 3; the prettiest blobbers ever in a league of their own.

 

[Jasede]

That explains why I didn't consider Ishar when I read the thread - I only ever played Ishar 1, MS DOS. It was neat because it was outdoors but felt a little odd in some ways. Party members kill each other because they hate one another and there's a good chance dudes steal your gold while you sleep and run off.

 

[Excidium II]

Looks like the Ishar artist had trouble drawing faces.

 

[Alchemist]

Looks like the Ishar artist had trouble drawing faces.

Hah - that is so true. The environments are incredible - but the character art is really sub-par at times.

 

[Jasede]

They also had trouble spelling. I remember the German and the English text being riddled with mistakes. I wonder if it was originally French?

 

[mondblut]

Looks like the Ishar artist had trouble drawing faces.

Many of the portraits were inherited directly from 1, so style and quality are highly uneven.

Still, they were good enough for other games to steal them. Rol Crusaders, I am looking at thee

 

[cvv]

Ishars are weird games, even more than is usual for French games. God knows how many times I tried to get into them but never got through the first few hours. Maybe one day I'll meet a nice Codex bro who'll explain to me I'm stupid fucking cunt who wouldn't know a great RPG if it licked my balls and I'll give it another shot.

 

[V_K]

Gates of Skeldal

Evil's Doom too, but it's harder to find good screenshots for that one.