Small Graphical Touches that Blew You Away
During a relatively recent playthrough of Illusion of Gaia, I realized how amazing the simple graphical touches astounded me. The inspiration came from when Will jumps off a ledge of some sort. The minute detail of his hair and clothes fluttering quickly in the wind from the fall was extremely impressive.
Are there any little graphical touches that were/are particularly impressive to you?
Are there any little graphical touches that were/are particularly impressive to you?
Comments
(well, the color of the cloak anyways).
That and of course his weapons would change too. (Especially shield rod + new shields)
Back in the day it turned me into a Castlevania Crack Fiend and motivated me to find every item to see what it would do.
A small touch, but it added so much more for me.
-Myst. The sheer beauty of this Quicktime slideshow was a jaw-dropper.
-World of Warcraft. Their world designers are aces.
-LA Noire. You've never had faces so realistic.
-Super Mario Bros. The jump from 2600 / C64 / Speccy to this was unreal.
-Morrowind. It was stunning on the Trinitron, and a big big step up from Daggerfall visually.
Edit: These are all big graphical things. I am bad at reading comprehension. Attempting again:
-The animated objects to represent characters during the FF6 ending.
-The character sprite changes in Diablo 1 by equipment.
-The palette changes in Tetris (NES).
-when you exit a lake, water drips down your visor
-when you look up at the rain, the drops stream down your visor
-steam fogs up your visor
-enemy guts blowing up in your face cause splatter over your visor
-charging a power blast close to a wall will cause you to see your reflection
etc etc
It's the little details that make the difference.
Sonic the Hedgehog: When the controller is at rest for too long, Sonic gets impatient and looks at you, tapping his foot.
Originally posted by: JamesRobot
SMB3: Green fire balls (booger balls?) in the Toad houses.
Sonic the Hedgehog: When the controller is at rest for too long, Sonic gets impatient and looks at you, tapping his foot.
Mario falls a sleep, at least in all the 3D games...
-The zoom in/out effect in samurai shodown.
- stages changing time of day/weather in fatal fury
- seeing mode 7 for the first time on SNES.
- No idea if it really counts, but the violence in the MK and genesis MK1.
This is not a graphically impressive thing but in GTA V when you got out of your car after shutting it down, you could hear the clicking of the engine. That little touch blew me away.
- The ground in the NES version of Turtles Tournament Fighters
- Waldo in Where's Waldo? Impressive how such a few pixels can be arranged in different ways and should still show Waldo.
- Super Mario Land 2. The whole design, a big step after the first part.
During a relatively recent playthrough of Illusion of Gaia, I realized how amazing the simple graphical touches astounded me. The inspiration came from when Will jumps off a ledge of some sort. The minute detail of his hair and clothes fluttering quickly in the wind from the fall was extremely impressive.
Quintet did the same thing again--but better--in Terranigma
Super Castlevania IV spinning room with mode 7 was also mind blowing at the time as was the effects Konami pulled off in Contra and Castlevania on the genesis.
During a relatively recent playthrough of Illusion of Gaia, I realized how amazing the simple graphical touches astounded me. The inspiration came from when Will jumps off a ledge of some sort. The minute detail of his hair and clothes fluttering quickly in the wind from the fall was extremely impressive.
Quintet did the same thing again--but better--in Terranigma
I've played Terranigma. I don't remember being quite as wowed as I was with that detail in Gaia. Maybe because I played Gaia first, so the initial novelty was gone?
I love how well-animated the little things were in SNES/SFC Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon, like the little sprites facing off and the backgrounds. It really puts the N64 version to shame. Same thing with Wonder Project J SFC vs Wonder Project J2 (N64-J): when J's Pino walks by a puddle you might see a reflection with HDMA effects. When J2's Josette passes a puddle: nothing. It's static. It's all about polish.
Metroid Prime is the king of this.
-when you exit a lake, water drips down your visor
-when you look up at the rain, the drops stream down your visor
-steam fogs up your visor
-enemy guts blowing up in your face cause splatter over your visor
-charging a power blast close to a wall will cause you to see your reflection
etc etc
It's the little details that make the difference.
It's too bad that Prime Trilogy lost the heat effect from your arm cannon that comes after a burst of rapid fire. Adapting it to Wii controls meant redoing all that in a way that worked across all three games and for some reason they didn't hook that in. I'm also disappointed that they left out the flawlessly perfect title screen and didn't even integrate the music into the new menu!
Mode 7 is a great point. So many 'wow' moments with transformations and rotations. I love that darn system so much.
I especially liked the FF3/6 Mode 7 effects.
I do enjoy fluid animations. Something like Aladdin for Genesis.
Prince of Persia was a great example of that. If memory serves, Jordan Mechner (sp?) did that by rotoscoping the character sprite on top of frame by frame footage of his brother running back and forth in an open field.
First becoming Metal Mario in SM64, and bugs/bird shit hitting your windshield in Cruis'n USA in 1st person mode. Small details in Pilotwings 64. They all seem like nothing now, but they dropped our jaw back in 1996.
And then a few years later, the first time I put in NBA Courtside 2, the first sports game I ever saw with animated faces that looked like the real guys. Guys could open their mouths, blink....it was stunning compared to any other sports game at the time outside of Dreamcast ownership. WWF WrestleMania 2000 was the first game I saw with animated fingers and that was noticable right away. The censored blur when Mr. Ass would moon an opponent was awesome too.
Speaking of Dreamcast, that's the last time I probably really felt "stunned". The water effects in Sonic Adventure and Lulu Valentine's bouncing jugs in Ready 2 Rumble. I couldn't believe how good the Dreamcast looked when I first got my hands on one.
I was in a bit of awe last year with NBA 2K16 the first time I saw Steph Curry dangle his mouthguard outside his mouth. In was really appriciated a few years ago too, I think NBA 2K14, when LeBron's headband became pulled way back to hide his hairline. Those are the types of little details that I appriciate.
bugs/bird shit hitting your windshield in Cruis'n USA in 1st person mode
I forgot about that! The first time that happened to one of my cousins while we were playing, I remember always driving in 1st person mode to see what else happened.
I do enjoy fluid animations. Something like Aladdin for Genesis.
Prince of Persia was a great example of that. If memory serves, Jordan Mechner (sp?) did that by rotoscoping the character sprite on top of frame by frame footage of his brother running back and forth in an open field.
Ah yes, another great example!