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Say what you want but FF7 backgrounds are amazing and still easily hold up today.  That was my phone background for a while. I think I'll go buy it for PS4.
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Oct 5, 2016 15:52
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mandatory lesbian posted:come to terms with cloud being a fuckboi Look, I won't have people slander my man Mukki, he might be a shameless flirt but he's no rapist.
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Oct 5, 2016 16:00
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The FMV render of Jenova's weird metal mask statue thing is almost uncanny how good it looks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jQQTU71mn4 Augus fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Oct 5, 2016 |
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Oct 5, 2016 16:15
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Augus posted:The FMV render of Jenova's weird metal mask statue thing is almost uncanny how good it looks.
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Oct 5, 2016 16:22
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Tempo 119 posted:FF7 has easily the least readable graphics of the entire series. There are no textures for god's sake. Choosing a curled-up bug monster and going "I can't read this" is a bit disingenuous. FFVII had pretty basic monsters but in doing so a lot of them were extremely readable because the simplistic graphics meant they had to make them distinctive and often weird. It's how you get the evil house or this jaunty fellow:  They're basic-rear end models and nobody would argue otherwise but because they're basic their distinctive features stick out. In comparison FFVIII, especially when it first came out, was a blurry mess. Not universally so but the non-human stuff you point out gets more readable BECAUSE it simplifies and goes for less realism. In comparison the less styalized the characters the more they're hurt by FFVIII's ill-advised attempts at realism.  It is why FFIX looks so much better. They have enough experience to realize that what they did with FFVIII didn't work and so they took the basic idea of FFVII (simple big colorful models) and went with it which works the best under the PSX's limitations.
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Oct 5, 2016 16:24
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The story of FF8 and
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Oct 5, 2016 16:31
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FF8 looks fantastic outside of combat, though. There are tons of things to hate about it, but it's very pretty, especially in towns and Gardens.
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Oct 5, 2016 16:33
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Its hard to do apples to apples comparisons of 7,8, and 9 just because all the games look like mud through a PlayStation with FF9 having the most experience in making it look good through mud. They all look varying amounts of good and stylish when emulating them or the PC ports of them all.
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Oct 5, 2016 16:35
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FactsAreUseless posted:FF8 looks fantastic outside of combat, though. There are tons of things to hate about it, but it's very pretty, especially in towns and Gardens. it looks pretty good in combat too, when it's not being weirdly stretched 
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Oct 5, 2016 16:59
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FactsAreUseless posted:FF8 looks fantastic outside of combat, though. There are tons of things to hate about it, but it's very pretty, especially in towns and Gardens. Hey now mister you'd better watch yourself with those positive comments, someone might think you're a sympathizer.
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Oct 5, 2016 17:02
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morallyobjected posted:it looks pretty good in combat too, when it's not being weirdly stretched Also when it's being run through a computer a decade after launch.  FFVIII looked much worse on the PS1 than it does on PC. It absolutely benefits more than FFVII does from emulators and the PC ports though I'd argue even then it suffers a lot. (Neither looks remotely as good as FFIX though, even with the backgrounds not being improved.) ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Oct 5, 2016 |
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Oct 5, 2016 17:04
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Those are the combat models, though. The combat models look fine. It's the world map models that have the Popeye elbows; no amount of upscaling will give these poor people elbows.
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Oct 5, 2016 17:18
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Cape Cod Crab Chip posted:Those are the combat models, though. The combat models look fine. It's the world map models that have the Popeye elbows; no amount of upscaling will give these poor people elbows. Yeah, impossible! Unless you use mods to use the higher definition models. Are mods cheating? 
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Oct 5, 2016 17:28
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Cavelcade posted:Yeah, impossible! Unless you use mods to use the higher definition models. Are mods cheating? Mods don't really make sense for this conversation, we're discussing the game's regular art design rather than changed versions.
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Oct 5, 2016 17:29
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Seeing how we were discussing how the original games' art held up, yeah, it is cheating, actually.
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Oct 5, 2016 17:33
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 The field models can be described by a lot of adjectives like old fashioned and stylized but I don't think bad applies.
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Oct 5, 2016 17:35
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if anything, I feel like the mod makes the art worse, since all the other models are still low-definition, so they stand out a lot more.
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Oct 5, 2016 17:38
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Cavelcade posted:Yeah, impossible! Unless you use mods to use the higher definition models. Are mods cheating? Those look sorta weird on the standard background.
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Oct 5, 2016 17:38
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They're charming. They're still in that phase where the characters could do cartoon slapstick without it being weird.
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Oct 5, 2016 17:44
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ImpAtom posted:Choosing a curled-up bug monster and going "I can't read this" is a bit disingenuous. FFVII had pretty basic monsters but in doing so a lot of them were extremely readable because the simplistic graphics meant they had to make them distinctive and often weird. It's how you get the evil house or this jaunty fellow: FF9 is ugly and messy and exactly the opposite of what you're saying here, it's like they figured out how to cram more and more detail into the models and just couldn't stop themselves doing it. If any of the games needs simplifying it's that one IMO! You're hung up on this idea of FF8 being more realistic and it's not even particularly true outside of the human characters being taller and thinner, which doesn't stop them being just as colourful and recognisable and expressively animated as all the rest. FF9 goes for a more distinctive silhouette, but that's not necessarily a gain for readability in itself. Just look at Amarant's weird loving head. Edit: think of all the people who never spotted Amarant's face, or thought Cait Sith was some big pink squishy thing. All the FF7 monsters you have to just guess whether they're made of flesh or rock absent any clues. That's what I mean by readability, and I've never heard anyone have a problem with it in FF8. Tempo 119 fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Oct 5, 2016 |
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Oct 5, 2016 18:18
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Tempo 119 posted:FF9 is ugly and messy and exactly the opposite of what you're saying here, it's like they figured out how to cram more and more detail into the models and just couldn't stop themselves doing it. If any of the games needs simplifying it's that one.  "Ugly, messy"  Not, I guess? Tempo 119 posted:Edit: think of all the people who never spotted Amarant's face, or thought Cait Sith was some big pink squishy thing. All the FF7 monsters you have to just guess whether they're made of flesh or rock absent any clues. That's what I mean by readability, and I've never heard anyone have a problem with it in FF8. Neither of those have anything to do with the character model. People identify Cait Sith as the moogle because the moogle is the largest part of his character model and the most recognizable part. This isn't even unique to Cait Sith. LoL has a character called "Nunu" who is a boy riding a yeti and plenty of people identify the yeti as Nunu, not the kid riding him. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Oct 5, 2016 |
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Oct 5, 2016 18:31
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ImpAtom posted:
Both are these are fine, hope that helps. The problem is when you're looking at models for minor characters in both games. Cherry-pick some images of those and make the argument then.
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Oct 5, 2016 18:34
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FF8 had issues with pixels getting in the way of moving objects like characters, making them look like a glitch at times. Zell looks like a flaming skull.
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Oct 5, 2016 18:42
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Tempo 119 posted:FF9 is ugly and messy and exactly the opposite of what you're saying here, it's like they figured out how to cram more and more detail into the models and just couldn't stop themselves doing it. If any of the games needs simplifying it's that one IMO! They have about as much detail per character as FFVIII's models but the simplified artstyle allows those to be both smaller aspects of the character and much better defined. Compare Vivi's PS1 walking around model to PS1 Squall, Vivi's details are clear and crisp and easily recognizable (The color on his cuffs, the pants, his fancy hat) where as Squalls are either hard to read or sometimes not there because of how their modeling works. His jacket fur looked like a rolled up towel around his neck in the original release, the scar, along with everyone's faces, just occasionally blinks out of existence/distorts and the belts never really look good. This is of course ignoring the most hosed up thing about 8's models, that it's a loving CLAMP series because everyone is 70% Legs with scrunched up torso's outside of combat.
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Oct 5, 2016 18:45
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Shoren posted:Both are these are fine, hope that helps. The problem is when you're looking at models for minor characters in both games. Cherry-pick some images of those and make the argument then. Okay?  Here is a random screenshot I grabbed from an LP  Same. I tried to get a closer shot from FFVIII but they avoid putting NPCs close to the camera wherever possible. PS1-era graphics work best with simple models which are designed to emphasis specific parts of the character. FF8's attempt to do what would later evolve into their realistic art style means they have a lot of things that blend together and distort the design. Squall is a mess of black because while his design makes sense on a CG models on a PS1 character model it can't have the breaking up it needs to be clear and readable. In comparison any given FF9 character can be easily identified. They're not perfect but they're better than FF8 where everything blends together into a faintly appropriately shaped mass of pixels. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Oct 5, 2016 |
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Oct 5, 2016 18:45
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All of these are hideous
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Oct 5, 2016 19:20
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I finally disagree with ImpAtom on something. Feels queasy and weird.
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Oct 5, 2016 19:32
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Cape Cod Crab Chip posted:I finally disagree with ImpAtom on something. Feels queasy and weird. Well, I'm certainly not saying FFVII looks good. v  v Just that in terms of aging, simple character models have done better in the long run.
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Oct 5, 2016 19:33
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I maintain that the backgrounds and overall art design have aged really well - the sprites, not so much.
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Oct 5, 2016 19:37
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Cavelcade posted:I maintain that the backgrounds and overall art design have aged really well - the sprites, not so much. I don't disagree with that for any of the games. I will say I think FF7 and 9 have overall stronger art design than FF8 but that is just a matter of preference I think, and in FF7's case heavily skewed by Midgar's loving awesome art design rather than being universal.
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Oct 5, 2016 19:40
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FF7 looked so great, that Shadow Madness copied it. What z-tier RPG copied FFVIII or IX, huh, HUH?!
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Oct 5, 2016 19:43
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For my money I think what's really aged poorly about VIII, other than the everything, is the pixelation. We do see it way more than we did back then. I've mentioned this before but I really do remember clearly thinking of the FFVII overworld models as "Popeye-shaped", even all the way back then. The polygonal blocks' crisply delineated shapes has helped with its aging problem, no doubt, but it still looks rough because, well, it had to. FFVIII, meanwhile, everything's shaped more or less like how it should be shaped. I can clearly see things' details and proportions, even though the pixelation really has blurred the details to a point it didn't before, back when our eyes were more trained to separate the pixels and fill in the blanks for us. And to bring it back to what started this discussion in the first place, namely the girlfriend who thought IX looked worse than VIII, well, she wasn't lying. What I mean is she might have been wrong but I have absolutely no reason to believe she was dishonest. What, then, would make someone looking at these games in 2016, a layperson who doesn't have opinions about these games or any clue what us sad rear end nerds think about them, say this?
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Oct 5, 2016 19:54
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ImpAtom posted:I don't disagree with that for any of the games. The town designs for every part of 7 were pretty  but that is true of a lot of the towns in 7-9. But the music in 7 complemented the design better than most of the towns in 8 or 9. In a lot of ways, the sound and art design seemed most unified in that game. That might just be personal taste, though.Cosmo canyon and it's theme will always be great, though. It makes me sad that almost all the remastered versions don't have the electric guitar bit. It's an important part of the theme! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T3srk8Dkuo
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Oct 5, 2016 20:07
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Cape Cod Crab Chip posted:What, then, would make someone looking at these games in 2016, a layperson who doesn't have opinions about these games or any clue what us sad rear end nerds think about them, say this? I won't speak for that specific person but a lot of times what people mean when they say this is that they dislike the art style. (Which was a problem even with FFIX came out and a lot of people said it looked bad even at the time.) It's a weird cartoony super-deformed art style that Final Fantasy as a franchise has moved largely away from aside from in side materials or spinoffs. Even if you like cartoony art styles FF9's can be an acquired taste or even something you dislike. Even if you're a big Final Fantasy fan and have been for years the last time a mainline Final Fantasy game wasn't moving towards 'realism' in character design was... FF6? Maybe FF7 if you ignore it clearly starting down that line before the tech was there. (And thus why FF7:R is now in that style.) FF9 is the weird outlier in a lot of ways.
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Oct 5, 2016 20:10
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zedprime posted:
cloud has no mouth and must scream
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Oct 5, 2016 20:27
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Tempo 119 posted:
Gouraud shading owns hard.
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Oct 5, 2016 22:16
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7-9 all still look great to me because they are good games and I love them
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Oct 5, 2016 22:34
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Please don't use the word "sprites" to refer to 3D models thank you. Also FFIX still looks really good, it's by far the best-looking thing to come off the PS1
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Oct 5, 2016 22:42
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mandatory lesbian posted:cloud has no mouth and must scream They added mouths in the PC version. Trust me, they were better off without them.
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Oct 5, 2016 22:43
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| # ? May 26, 2024 23:25 |
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Most of them get to scream, too!
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Oct 5, 2016 22:44
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