Released in 1996, in a time when developers didn't knew the console limits or how good graphics should look and work, Tobal had anime-like designs by Akira Toriyama rendered with very few textures and blocky models that mixed flat shading with gourad shading. Some characters parts are smooth, most are blocky. The game also uses vertex colors. While Spyro uses vertex colors only on skyboxes with really good results, Tobal uses vertex colors on the stages, and this gives the game an weird ethereal quality that clashes with the blocky models.
Maybe some would call it "vaporwave".
Post weird and "off" looking games. And I'm not talking shit looking games like Playstation SimCity 2000
The sequel went for a more normal look with simple textures with smooth shading and really boring flat 2D stages.
I can't think of any off the top of my head but I really love Tobal
>>3830685
The second game featured an expanded dungeon crawler mode and over 200 unlockable playable characters.
check this for vaporwave
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0QhKokNu_k
Oh, and I'm not talking only about 3D games. PuLiRuLa looks pretty strange, with pastel colors and digitized photos.
>>3830686
I never could get into it. I'm playing the first game and starting to like it, though.
I found the characters a bit boring. I do like Il Goga.
Actually I was expecting a more interesting fighting game. Not DBZ world-destroying beams, of course. I don't even like DBZ. But something more like early Dragon Ball fights.
We never had a good fighting game with Dragon Ball and wuxia-like fights.
>>3830704
... but the dungeon crawler mode sucks in both game, as it keeps the same controls of the fighting mode even for exploration. It's clumsy.
The idea is interesting, the execution just sucks. And I hate Tobal no2 OST.
>>3830710
Oh yeah, nice fucked up color palette. This game would look better (or less shitty) with no shading at all and more tame colors.
Interesting that most games of that gen would look better with no shading like Megaman Legends.
This game has always looked weird as hell to me, even today. Platforms were literally devoid of both color and texture, or really fucking anything, and the levels in the game felt like an unfinished alpha, with no themes or art direction holding it together. It's like poor Bubsy was stuck in a virtual reality limbo.
bubble bobble 2 has a mix of 2d sprites for the gameplay and random digital photos for the backgrounds which i like XD
>>3830678
That game had no textures because they used up all the vram to run the game in hi-res.
If they used an intermediate resolution like 384x224 like Tekken did, then it could've had ample amount of textures - but then it wouldn't be as much of a tech demo.
>>3831134
Wasn't it running at 60fps as well?
>>3831124
Bubble Bobble Memories / III goes another step and literally has some guy's 90s holiday photo album as the backgrounds. Taito couldn't get over that they could digitize photos.
>>3831098
Now THIS looks like some surreal early 3D vaporwave landscape
>>3830704
I agree that Tobal 2 is great I really spent a lot of time playing it and even got a fun little monster collecting game going on with some friends where we'd play vs mode using only characters we had unlocked in the dungeon ourselves.
>>3830735
It would have been really nice if Ehrgeiz had used this mechanic from Tobal 2. I was very disappointed when it came out and it didn't. Another case of me expecting too much out of publishers back in the day.
>>3831587
hahaha!
>>3831587
You should try ULTRA BALLOON
>>3831587
Umihara Kawase also has this "aesthetic"
>>3830710
>Heaven's Gate
What a name.
Tobal dungeon mode was my shit, even though I had no idea how to play it and only ever rented the title.
Kind of like that Ehgeiz game, with it's RPG dungeon mode thing.
>>3831941
Ehgeiz dungeon mode was my shit
>>3831920
Well, at least it's not Top Banana.
>>3830678
It can look kind of weird today, but there are few things I love more about early 3D titles than prerendered backgrounds.
>>3831587
>>3831926
digitized photos always give me the willies
>>3832902
I highly agree anon
>>3832902
MIDGAR HAD AMAZING AESTHETICS
Obligatory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoCFToFstSY
>>3833215
>My Bloody Valentine Loveless
what the actual fuck? I never noticed that.
>>3833314
holy shit me neither, like i knew there was a play called loveless but i didnt know it was a reference to the band
do you think they know?
>>3831563
As I recall, it did run in 60fps, which was pretty impressive.
Although the system is generally much faster drawing untextured polygons, so this is not surprising.
>>3832908
I always found this DOOM background haunting and beautiful
>>3831929
Yeah, it's a bit spoopy. The fact that the Heaven's Gate cult offed themselves in 1997, and the game Heaven's Gate was released in 1996, makes it even weirder.
Ecstatica
>>3834583
>>3834590
>>3834594
>>3834597
>>3831941
>Kind of like that Ehgeiz game, with it's RPG dungeon mode thing.
That's a roguelike btw. It's a genre. The japanese keep making them 3D and real-time twitchy games, but the traditional western flavor is turn-based.
Time Commando always felt kinda strange to me.
>>3834690
To me Ecstatica looks like a cross between Alone in The Dark and Little Big Adventure.
Actually, this is what the game is.
>>3834401
couldn't disagree more. there's way too many corny Goku Get 'Em/power of friendship protagonists in anime games. FF7 and 8 are great changes of pace.
>>3834972
whatever...