Do you remember a game's graphics as they ACTUALLY were?

[FireAza]

A common, well, comment that often pops up when discussing re-playing old games is "I don't remember the graphics looking this bad!" But for myself, I don't find this to be true.

When I replay an old game, I often find that the game is exactly how I remember it, often down to to the angles of the polygons and the stretching of the texture if it's a Nintendo 64 game. For Super Nintendo, it's a little different. At the time, I played the SNES with an RF connection, as was the TV I watched TV shows on. Since they were both blurry, SNES games looked just as smooth as any TV cartoon. It wasn't until I played the console again with a better connection on a bigger TV that I saw the game's pixels.

Obviously, the standards for what makes a game's graphics impressive move along with each new console cycle. Ocarina of Time's lighting and shadows used to be really impressive at the time, but now pale in comparison to what modern games can do. So going back can make you say "wow, remember when this game's graphics used to be state-of-the-art?" but can it really make someone misremember what they actually looked like?

What about you guys? Do you remember a game's graphics as they really were, or have you gone back and found they looked really different?

 

[Caiphus]

A little bit. I don't think that it's that much of a shock. Maybe it depends on your first gaming console?

Mine was the N64, which I occasionally play for nostalgia's sake. And because Mario Party 3 is the shit. I actually did a full 100% completion of Super Mario 64 over the holidays with my brother. It seemed pretty much how I remember it, and we still enjoyed it. I was, of course, more impressed with the graphics at the time. But I don't think I forgot.

It's actually slightly more poignant for me when I see games I've never played before. I used to watch a lot of Game Grumps, and they play a bunch of older games, a lot of which I think just look awful. Banjo-Kazooie being one example. I also recently bought Neverwinter Nights, and struggled to enjoy the game because the graphics just aren't close to the modern standard.

So maybe rose-tinted nostalgia goggles makes me look past the old graphics of my old favourite games? Maybe it's the same for you?

 

[Strelok]

I found myself replaying old games and being shocked at how bad they look now, but this is more with modern games. Classic games do not seem to be affected by it, going back on the Colecovision emulator, or playing old NES games, even into DOS games like Shadow Warrior, Doom and Duke Nukem they do not seem affected by this, I am not sure why. Now recently I have gone back and played games that were cutting edge at the time, like Quake 4 and I was astonished at how bad it looks now. More recently I started up F.E.A.R. again, a system killer in 2005 (At Dell on Call we got calls to help get this running at max settings), and I kept checking the settings to make sure I turned everything up, that is how bad it looks to me, F.E.A.R.!?!? Really, I am that spoiled? Of course it is 8 years old, but still. There should be a name for this phenomenon, well there probably is, I think it's nostalgia goggles? Don't know, but it does affect the way I play games now, needs a support group or something, to deal with the disappointment.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Sometimes I am shocked but usually its not far off the mark from what I remember it, its usually the controls that get me was Bubble Bobble always this clunky must have been I suppose.

 

[RJ 17]

If I can actually remember the game itself (and not just the name or that I enjoyed playing it or something) then I'll remember what the graphics were like. Usually the only thing that's "different" when I play an older game is that it's either harder or (more usually) easier than I remembered it to be.

 

[krazykidd]

Not really, i usually remember it as it was , and since i've been playing games since i was 4, i fully understandtl the graphics for a game was impressive for it's time . However , i did laugh when i put in Street fighter EX3 in my PS2 this week . I haven't played that game in over a decade and holyshit ryu's arms are not the same color as his face . It looked like a frankenstein creation . That's the only example i got .

 

[OneCatch]

I found myself replaying old games and being shocked at how bad they look now, but this is more with modern games. Classic games do not seem to be affected by it, going back on the Colecovision emulator, or playing old NES games, even into DOS games like Shadow Warrior, Doom and Duke Nukem they do not seem affected by this, I am not sure why. Now recently I have gone back and played games that were cutting edge at the time, like Quake 4 and I was astonished at how bad it looks now. More recently I started up F.E.A.R. again, a system killer in 2005 (At Dell on Call we got calls to help get this running at max settings), and I kept checking the settings to make sure I turned everything up, that is how bad it looks to me, F.E.A.R.!?!? Really, I am that spoiled? Of course it is 8 years old, but still. There should be a name for this phenomenon, well there probably is, I think it's nostalgia goggles? Don't know, but it does affect the way I play games now, needs a support group or something, to deal with the disappointment.

I just started playing FEAR again. As a tip, you can force fullscreen anti-aliasing and antisotropic filtering in Catalyst Control Center or the Nvidia Control Panel by creating an application profile.
It generally makes FEAR look a lot better - more in line with the newer Splinter Cells rather than "Half Life 2 with shadows". The only downside is that you might have to reduce particle effects a bit to increase framerate in slo-mo, but nothing noticeable.

---------------
OT, I find that I'll kind of go "Holyshit these graphics look old now" when I start playing an old game, but after a few minutes I'll get back into it won't notice any more.
It most dramatically happened when I replayed KOTOR a few months back, because back in the day that had incredible graphics for the time - the player character having complex and changing facial expressions outside of cutscenes for example. Of course by modern standards it looks pretty crap:

Sometimes though, I'll even think that something ancient looks really pretty in spite of the resources available.
For example, Majora's Mask is just beautiful, in spite of the fact that on a technical level the graphics are dreadful. Same applies for Morrowind (admittedly more the artistic style there), and I'd also mention Rogue Leader because of those lovely lighting effects.

 

[Zhukov]

I don't really bother with old games, so it doesn't happen to me that often.

Although the other day I saw some Goldeneye N64 footage and was pretty amazed at how hideous it was.

 

[Comocat]

Sometimes I am shocked but usually its not far off the mark from what I remember it, its usually the controls that get me was Bubble Bobble always this clunky must have been I suppose.

Same here, I'm always surprised at how terrible controls are in older games. That or it's my 20 year old nintendo, but it's amazing how unresponsive older games are.

 

[shrekfan246]

It's actually slightly more poignant for me when I see games I've never played before. I used to watch a lot of Game Grumps, and they play a bunch of older games, a lot of which I think just look awful. Banjo-Kazooie being one example.

I dunno, I think there's a certain charm behind the graphics of Banjo-Kazooie that you don't really see much anymore. Sure, the texture quality is practically nonexistent and there are huge polygons everywhere, but it's aged much better from a visual standpoint than a lot of other N64 games. It is a game I have a lot of nostalgia for, but last year I went back and did another new play-through of it and still thought it's a fantastic-looking game. Of course, its sequel has aged better, but usually that's to be expected.

OT: I'd say that I generally do. The only time going back to an old game has really left me thinking "Wow, did this always look like that?" is some of the battle arenas in Final Fantasy IX, because some of them have hilariously low-res textures plastered on the walls and floor. That's balanced out by how mind-blowingly beautiful the rest of the game still is even today, though, so...

But then, growing up my graphical standards were pretty much all over the place anyway. On top of the fact that until had a Gamecube all of my own there was never a huge number of games to play for the systems my family owned, I grew up with a little bit of everything; Sega Genesis, Nintendo 64, PC, Gameboy, Playstation... and I continued playing games like Sonic the Hedgehog, Final Fantasy, Pokemon, and Banjo-Tooie well after I had gotten my Gamecube, so while I could look at something and say "Yeah, this is uglier" as a frame of reference, I never really had that much of a concern for how smooth the graphics were.

 

[BrotherRool]

I find with the older Banjo-Kazooie style games I tend to remember them as though they were modern cell-shaded Pixar quality stuff. The jagged lines go completely out of my head.

And to steal an example from Loading Ready Run, I see FFXHD footage and it looks like how I remember the game, and then I look at the game and realise that my mind has removed a whole lot of blurry imperfections.


It's hard to tell, maybe it's youtube's fault, but Spiderman 2 looks a lot worse than I remember it too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYGMfNPT7zA
I remember the city looking more detailed and less flat than that too

 

[CannibalCorpses]

It's only started happening since the Megadrive/SNES days...before that i remember games as they actually are. Commodore 64/Vic 20 games look the same as they always did and Megadrive and SNES games still look pretty much the same (with bland backgrounds)...it's the mid-late 90's where rose tinted glasses come into play.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Pretty much, yeah. I recently replayed a few of my Funcube games like Tales of Symphponia, Sonic Adventure DX Director's Cut/2 Battle, Soul Calibur II, Luigi's Mansion and even Metroid Prime. All of them looked exactly as I remember them.

Same thing with my Funtendo 64. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Mission: Impossible, Bomberman Heroes, Jet Force Gemini, Yoshi's Story, Turok, Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. The all look exactly as I remember them.

Not all have aged well, but I still enjoy them.

 

[mechalynx]

Well, Oblivion is not as pretty as I choose to remember it. Everything else tends to look the same, apart from being a bit more pointy around the edges on my HD screen.

 

[Mikeyfell]

I remember playing ICO
Then I remember playing ICO HD years later and thinking "Well that doesn't look THAT much better"

Then going back and watching some footage from the original ICO and saying ".......How did I even finish that game..."

 

[KOMega]

The only game I remember going "I don't remember the graphics looking this bad!" was with that Bug's Life game.

I played that game when I was a little kid and got everything you could get in that game.
Then I saw Game Grumps playing it and I just went, "waddafuq?, this looks so bad! Why did I like this game so much before?"

Otherwise, I've come across me saying "I don't remember this game being so hard!" when I come back to an old game and I remember getting through places easy which I would be having so much trouble now.

Like, I got the ICO + Shadow of the Colossus bundle disc and that 3rd colossus gave me so much trouble now with his friggin belly sigil. His normal walking is enough to cancel my sword stabs on his belly. I don't remember having this much trouble!

 

[Matthewmagic]

I just rebought Final Fantasy VII for the PC. To be honest the graphics are a lot better than I remember them being. Well not a lot, but enough to be noticed.

 

[BarkBarker]

The thing is, textures certainly get noticeably old as time passes, the eternal games are never the realistic looking ones because they have no STYLE, no PIZZAZ, I went back to play Klonoa 2 after a couple of years a while back, and I still find it looks very fucking pretty, it does sometimes look weird watching the not particularly round boulders pass me by, but other than noticing the shapes of things not be as accurate as they can be now, I don't really notice much, hell I'd say in terms of art the game trumps a lot of more modern games for just enjoying what it is to such an extent.

 

[doomed89]

I do enough old school gaming that I don't have to remember.