Why does pixel art in old games look better than pixel art in

old school pixel art wasn't a style, it was what everyone had to work with, it's like saying that everything on PS1 and N64 had a low-poly style, that's just the technical limitations.

Nowadays pixel art is a style in and of itself and not the the restrictions that the art style had to work with

>>383368383
Because of the limitations the developers had to do the best of what they had to work with. Also due to the limitations, you engaged the game and allowed your imagination to assist the visuals.

I can already imagine how that grotesque mound of flesh and bone moves.

>>383368383
Because they had artists. Most games that use pixel art today are using it because they don't have an artist on the team.

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>>383368695
You should stop imagining and go see it. Lands of Lore is a pretty good dungeon crawler, with good dungeon designs, art, and music, and it's simple as fuck so no one gets to say old games are too hard.

>>383372250
I'll add it to my list. Right now I'm trying to see how long I can last in Wizardry 4 before it breaks me.

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>>383372420
If you get far then you're a better old-school roleplayer than me, I pretty quickly gave up and read Crooked Bee's let's play of it. But I know that's my fault, not the game's. Maybe someday I'll revisit it, but there are a lot more dungeon crawlers I want to play through before I take on that behemoth again.

>>383372738
I'm giving the game an honest effort, but Trebor and mages keep dicking me good. This shit was made by someone who wanted players to suffer.

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>>383372909
Yeah, it's not just that the game is hard, it's that some of it is arbitrary. Why does Trebor move in real time when the game is turn-based? Why do you have to exit the first room in such an unrealistic way because you can't just tell them to cast the spell? That said, I can definitely see how it's immensely enjoyable when you have a certain mindset.

I'll throw in a mention of Paper Sorcerer here. It follows the Wiz 4 formula of you're a lone mage who summons minions to escape a prison, but the difficulty curve is for, well, normal people. It also has a neat style, but I found it grating after a while.

>>383368383

Pixel art in old games was the result of artists doing the best they could with the technology they had.

Pixel art in modern games is made to look deliberately retro.

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>>383373465
If they were trying to be retro, they'd actually put some effort into making it look good because that's what people back then did.

The shit indies are peddling do not look like anything that actually existed in the times they're supposedly influenced by. At least not the stuff anyone would have actually played.

>>383368383
>lands of lore
my nigga

>>383373263
Paper Sorcerer was fine, if a bit unpolished. You can tell it was a one man job. Also the difficulty curve is all over the place. But it was good for what it was. Also don't open a door while getting an encounter, because the game shits itself.

>>383368541

This sums it up perfectly well. Before we had pixel art because that was the limitation, today it's a deliberate choice for artistic purposes.

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>>383373682

I never said they were good at it.

>>383368383
Scanlines.

>>383373954
Yeah, it was definitely buggy. I found some spots where I could fall through the geometry or see the side of a wall that wasn't rendered because it was external.

I think its main issue is it doesn't feel as deliberate as Wiz 4. A lot of the level design is just putting some boxes together and adding monsters. But it's a gimmick that deserves more copying.

>>383374138
I agree. We need more games where you play as an evil overlord that summons minions. I also enjoyed Paper Sorcerer's cheesy as fuck ending.

>>383373263
If you treat Wiz 4 as an ironic joke game (which the ending parts clearly reveal it is), it becomes fucking hilarious.

>>383368541
Pixel graphics then were created by artists doing the best they could with what they had. They were labors of love. They were pushing the boundaries of what they had available to them.

Pixel graphics now are the opposite. They are a choice made for no other reason than laziness. And if you're going to be lazy, why not go all the way and do as little as possible? The shittier it is, the more hipster points you win. They are not artists.

This pattern applies to far more than graphics.

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>>383368383
Probably outlines.

Animation wise, there's some great modern sprite work, but for some reason many of the people putting out the quality sprites stopped using outlines.

I agree but that picture is a real cheap shot, you've got other indie games that are much cleaner looking and better designed. I mean come on, those portraits are hilarious hideous.
But obviously 90's pixel art in japanese games is unmatched simply because the technology was there for displaying them and the artists were very good at what they did.

>>383368383
One answer is that because it was all they had, there's a broad variety of styles drawn by talented artists. The other answer is that you cherry picked good examples for old games and bad examples for new ones.

There's plenty of good modern pixel art, just way more games using it as a crutch because they don't have money or talented artists. Plus there's just different art styles due to different objectives, genres, and the like being made. There isn't really anybody making pixel art 2d first-person dungeon crawlers right now, for one thing. People have more tools and options at their disposal so people pick the one they want rather than be forced into one of them.

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>>383375036
>There isn't really anybody making pixel art 2d first-person dungeon crawlers right now
AHEM

What is the most moddable cRPG?

>>383375632
NWN 1 maybe?

>>383373682

That depends entirely on the artist.

>>383368383
Back then it was a limitation, now its a convenience

>>383375632
>>383375670

Yeah, Neverwinter Nights has tons of potential. Original Baldurs Gate was pretty good as well but it didn't have the great framework that NWN has. I think the sequel had even more scripting features.

>>383375632
Both Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind, Fallout New Vegas (all the Bethesda engine games really but those two are the only good ones), Infinity Engine games, Deus Ex

>>383375670
I meant older cRPGs, every newer I know about I modded. But both NWN 1 and 2 have great modules.

>>383375892

>implying NWN isn't old

Anon, it was released in 2002. Sequel to Baldurs Gate came out in 2000. If you mean the Black Isle cRPGs then BG has the most modding potential. For modern cRPG I would take a peek at Original Sin.

>>383375892
If you mean 90s, modding was pretty much limited to action games like Doom, Quake and Half-Life. Fallout and System Shock 2 are moddable, that's all that comes to mind.

>>383376181
I was thinking of cRPGs made before 2000. You never hear about mods for those games (excluding Fallout or Baldur's Gate).

>>383376258
That's too bad, there are some mods for Wizardry series and Ultima 7, but those are mostly fixes.

>>383376504

Yeah, they're rare. There are some oddball mods for Troika Games but overall the modding scene isn't really that big for RPGs in general. Like the anon wrote above your post it was mostly reserved for Doom and Quake. I don't think mods in general really existed until Doom was made open source.

>>383374130
this

>Pixel art in old games
Actual artists working around hardware limitations
>Pixel art in new games
"""Artists""" pandering to nostalgia

>>383376684
Depends on your definition of mod, people were making Doom levels as soon as it was out.