Stylistically Great Games

[Johnnyweird]

I just played Okami the other day, and I was pretty much blown away.
All of the gameplay elements were completely tied together by the Japanese painting motif.
It's not necessarily a game I'm going to be playing for very long, but jesus, it was beautiful.
It didn't even have great graphics, but the sheer power of the art direction made me really like it.

Name the games you think are the most unified in a certain style or characteristic.

 

[Graustein]

Wind Waker will always have a place in my heart for its unique appearance. Also, I find myself drawn to sprite-based JRPGs. The biggest reason I'm not an FF fan is because it goes for a CGI anime look as opposed to a cartoony anime look. The big thing is that the cartoony sprite style has already peaked, or near enough, so all graphical enhancements can really do is add particle effects and possibly more detailed sprites. This means that a SNES game like Chrono Trigger isn't the kind of eyesore that FF7 or OoT is, because the modern alternatives to Chrono Trigger, such as Golden Sun (relatively modern anyways) don't actually look that much better.

I'm going to get Okami for Wii soon. It had better be as good on the Wii as it apparently was on the PS2.

 

[GothmogII]

Team Fortress 2, it's almost aesthetically perfect, that is there's very little that they could add to it graphically that would make it even more better looking than it is. This, and the way the classes and maps are designed. That whole evil genius type feel and look is just awesome :3

Speaking of which...the game 'Evil Genius' pulls of this look very well, being that the whole game is bascially designed around this theme. Though the gameplay is a bit..lacking, it's still quite a good 'tycoon' type game, and this is mainly due to the amount of style it has.

 

[TinyTim]

Grim Fandango.

 

[YaoiandYuri]

personally, i too like sprite based JRPGs...doesn't exactly have to be a RPG, but their art is sure nice, Sting's Dept. of heaven series art was pretty unique and good looking in my opinion. Does DMC count too?

 

[JaguarWong]

It didn't even have great graphics...

Interesting that you separate graphic style and graphics technicality - I never do and as such I would say that Okami has better graphics than... Oh, lets say Crysis.
Not saying you're wrong and I'm right, just remarking on the difference.

Anyway, to answer the question...

Rez - Not only the visual but also the aural style are perfectly realised and so create THE great gaming audio-visual experience. Never bettered.

 

[sammyfreak]

Grim Fandango.

 

[Copter400]

Style-Suckz @ss
Most Unified- Azurik

Mental deficiencies! Yay!

I've got to go with Viewtiful Joe's over-the-top, cartoony cell-shading action. Simply awesome.

 

[GothmogII]

nteresting that you separate graphic style and graphics technicality - I never do and as such I would say that Okami has better graphics than... Oh, lets say Crysis.
Not saying you're wrong and I'm right, just remarking on the difference.

Anyway, to answer the question...

Rez - Not only the visual but also the aural style are perfectly realised and so create THE great gaming audio-visual experience. Never bettered.

Actually, that's a good point, a game can be good graphically in a tehnical sense, but still look awful aesthetically. Take...oh, let's say Doom 3, an okay FPS, not great, but okay imo, but, it does/did have a technically acomplished engine, however that kind of slickness, did not go well with the aesthetics or design of the overall game I thought.

That same engine, did however work quite a bit better with Quake 4, this was probably due to the fact that you were playing in a far more mechanical and bio-mechanical environment, and thus that 'sheen' made a little more sense than just shiny zombies.

This is also why a lot of games can be considered 'generic' in that, rather than focusing on a solid design aesthectic to begin with, i.e. one that is immediately unique and memorable, more focus is put on the technology that backs it, and what the engine can do. That's just my thinkings on it though ^^'

 

[GloatingSwine]

Well, Okami's already been mentioned, but also:

Bioshock - Art Deco underwater city? Yes please!

Psychonauts - Most especially Black Velvetopia.

The big thing is that the cartoony sprite style has already peaked, or near enough, so all graphical enhancements can really do is add particle effects and possibly more detailed sprites.

,
Sprite art might have peaked, but there's always more room for more frames of animation in sprite based games (usually their biggest limitation, as every frame has to be redrawn, meaning that the animation set is usually constrained).

However, it's generally been easier to move to shading techniques to preserve the same style whilst allowing more modern animation techniques, either with straight up cel shading or with more conventional shaders. Compare Chrono Trigger to, say Dragon Quest 8 or Blue Dragon, both do a better job of reproducing Toriyama's art style in motion than Chrono Trigger did.

 

[haruvister]

It didn't even have great graphics...

Interesting that you separate graphic style and graphics technicality - I never do and as such I would say that Okami has better graphics than... Oh, lets say Crysis.

I agree. There's a lot to be said for stylised graphics over the vérité style, both in simple aesthetic terms but also in that boldness of style needn't amount to huge technical demands. I'm still impressed by the richness of World of Warcraft's art design - it does not suffer as a result of fewer polygons, and it means the world is open to as wide an audience possible.

 

[monostable]

i don't have a clue what everyone is talking about here. Is it JRPGs?

 

[Pointsman]

Planescape Torment. I've got to say Lost Winds really hooked me with its sweet style. And it's so nice to see games like Okami, every game like that is a step in a good direction.

 

[GothmogII]

i don't have a clue what everyone is talking about here. Is it JRPGs?

Nope, every game. It's, what looks good versus what looks technologically good I guess.
You can have games that look and feel good to play, aswell as having the tech and gameplay behind it to back it up. But if all your game is going on is the tech + minimal or only moderate attention to the design...

For example: I personally find most of the games that use the Infinity Engine a joy to play,
you know, Baldur's Gate, Torment, Icewind Dale. Because they feel like a huge amount of effort has gone into not only the storyline, but the environment you play in.

Conversely: Neverwinter Nights, Neverwinter Nights 2 etc. While I can grasp the underlying story and gameplay, and indeed have enjoyed that too, I still was left feeling that neither the Aurora nor the Electron engines did justice to how the Forgotten Realms are supposed to look and feel, to my mind at least. It's like, Baldur's Gate has all these meticulously draw and layed out maps, and a fully realised world, whereas Neverwinter is just a cacophony of copy pasted tiles and enviroments. Although, I do realise they moved away from this in NWN 2, and that it's maps were a quite a bit more varied.

 

[stompy]

Loved Bioshock's art style. It had the 'decaying steam-punk city under the sea' look very well done, and you also had purty graphics.

Also, cell-shaded games like TF2, the new POP and a few others really manage to pull of the good looks, without melting your console/rig.

 

[JaguarWong]

Also, cell-shaded games ... really manage to pull of the good looks, without melting your console/rig.

A great example of this is very apparent on the DS.
Go look at a screenshot of 'Tony hawks Downhill Jam' on that machine.
Now go look at a screenshot 'American Sk8teland'.

The graphical limitations of the hardware are shown up in one and entirely masked in the other.

 

[GothmogII]

Loved Bioshock's art style. It had the 'decaying steam-punk city under the sea' look very well done, and you also had purty graphics.

*grumble*Damn Fallout ripoff*grumble* But yes, BioShock was quite well designed, a little too much blocking off of areas unfortunately (I guess to stop it becoming a sprawling mess) but it still felt a little that this -was- somewhere people had lived, now a desolate husk.
Could have used a little more Steampunk and less Zeerust though.

 

[Ultrajoe]

Assassins creed

i loved the game despite its flaws... and a large part of my love is that its gorgeous beyond reason.

 

[Kinichie]

Psychonauts, Team Fortress 2.

Both Unique and the latters art style doesn't melt my PC

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

I thought the Paper Mario franchise had a unique bit of flair in style with all its graphical humor and whatnot.