Is it necrotic to bump your own topic?

Anyway: Arx Fatalis! I'm having a great time... but I wish it looked more like Dishonored... or just 5 years newer. I don't think Arkane/Bethesda will ever make a remake/remaster of this one. (too late for me anyway)

I read that it uses the Arx engine, but it looks a lot like Quake III (Ugh! For some reason, it bothered me more in Elite Force 2 than in the first one.).

Still no nostalgia for me, but this game is worth it.

Ugliest era in gaming since the mid-80s, tbh. It was an awkward transition.

I think reviving a thread in which the last post was made just three months ago, doesn't really fall into the "necro" category. ;)

Don't we all have some games that we wish would look (and/or play) like another, newer game?
That's normal.
Sure, back when we played these games new, they were good enough the way they were, but with time comes technological progress, aka: nicer graphics, more comfortable user interfaces, etc...and we're getting used to it.

I often think to myself "oh man, imagine the same game, but done in that game's graphics or with the comfort of this game's controls...how awesome would that be?"

I like NWN 3D environment.... guess I do like early 3D games... I don't know I barely played anything besides that during early 2000th....

I wouldn't call NWN early 3D though. Most of the major transition happened during the mid-90s.

makes sense, didn't know that about mid 90s

3d dont u need special glasses for that?

I would. Most games in the (mid-)90s weren't even fully 3D.

A game could look like a petrified pile of dino dung for all I care - if it's an enjoyable game then I'm perfectly okay with that. A game that looks like trash and has no fun factor in any regard? It lives by the bin, it dies in the heap.

I shudder to think who died and made you the head of this necropsy. :P

This is more like proper necromancy.

Anyway, I recently played the PS1 version of Final Fantasy 7 and actually found the graphics the most impressive part of the game.
The music was very good as well, but I expected that. The story wasn't bad, but the teenager version of myself would probably have been more exited about it. I quickly grew tired of it though, probably because I had played to many old console RPGs in a row.

While this game doesn't qualify completely for this thread since it is a mix of polygon models, polygon geometry and pre-rendered backgrounds I still think of it as an early 3D game.

The graphic style does come with issues (to the point where they added an assist mode that helps with the first two issues I mention). In particular, can you quickly tell:
* Where the player character is
* Where the exits are
* Where the player can and can't walk?

Another issue (though not reflected in any of the screenshots) comes in combat: Sometimes the damage numbers are hard or impossible to see with the camera's movement. For the player, damage numbers are far more important than the flashy animations (which FF7's developers sometimes went overboard on).

Note that these issues apply to other Squaresoft games of that era, including SaGa Frontier (though at least all of SaGa Frontier's battle animations are at least of reasonable length). (I note that FF7 seems to be the only one with that assist mode.)

I like early 3D fighters like Virtua Fighter, Battle Arena Toshinden‎ and Dead or Alive 2. These were very unique 3D styles that I still enjoy and play to this day and look great to me.

Never got into consoles but I recently played The Glass Staircase and loved it. The visual are suppose to be like PS1 graphics.

Sure. The older graphic styles they used in the 16-bit era was both better looking and more functional and that could be said about their newer 3D graphics as well. But I like a variety of graphical styles. Since most graphical designers aren't terribly original and when you combine that with the technology of a period, you will find that after a while many games from that period do look very similar. One of the reasons that I play a lot of older games is that I do think graphics matter a lot.

I must understand that the OP is reffering with Early 3D to the 3D PSX era of games and/or the 1996-2000 3D PC 3D fever.

Bad aging graphics or not I passed good moments with a lot of those games. That is the important.

Indeed, the Playstation horsepower and the popularity of Quake made that every developer wanted a 3D engine didn't matter the genre. And specially the Graphic Adventure franchises suffered a lot with them, because the detailed and well tested 2D quality of graphics where changed with homemade 3D engnes low poly and low resolution.

They boarded in an inevitable crusade of create new technologies in a very short timeframe. Work in something that never was possible before because of the hardware limitations.

But more than the graphics themselves the real problem was the gameplay. the subpar interfaces and the problems involved in a real 3D game. And visually good of bad for the era, those graphics didn't age well In a very short time.

And it is a pity because not all of them were bad games. In fact years later they are revised as classics, once we take and accept its rules and limitations.

Some examples of those debatable interface and graphic choosings could be King's Quest Mask of Eternity, Simon the Sorcerer 3D or even Grim Fandango or Escape from Monkey Island. We must not forget that at the same time they tried to use the same interface for a PC or for a console. With iregular results.

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By the other hand, I am not too hard judging them because it is understandable. It was not only the graphics themselves. It was the New Hardware Accelerated technology. Someone who remember the advancement in framerate and visual quality when started a game with a Voodoo 2 Graphic Card, will understand What I am trying to say. It was like Night to Day.

So It is very understandable that with that possibilities Them and We users wanted the things pushed in that direction.

So, I like that old 3D? I am not to be clear, it will depend the game, so Subjectively Yes and Objectively No.
Because we must not to forget we didn't perceive those graphics with the same eyes. Previously we hadn't previous references. The evolution in the 3D has been linear and it always does age badly easily. We must be fair.

Gameplay wise, sure. Except Resident Evil, I have never been able to deal with the combo tank controls/dreadful camera.
Visually? Weeeeelll... most were really not good. You have some excellent exceptions like Thief (as long as you don't stare at the human models too much), but most can cause eye bleeding.
I undoubtedly preferred early 2D art, 3D started to visually improve much, much later.