Like is it just my eyes or something, but I swear PS3 games, Xbox 360, or even some Wii and Wii U look visually nicer than modern Triple A games due to being stylized? Or when a franchise has a great looking entry on a previous system, but the modern titles look worse or not as artistically distinct? What happened to games looking unique?

To me, the modern "realistic" ones sometimes fall into that uncanny valley territory.

Honestly I have no idea why AAA companies are racing for realism, I'd rather buy a game with its unique art style knowing it would not get old because of it.

Like I miss when games looked closer to this:

Feels weird calling these games HD... Or how people are now calling 7th gen games Retro? If it is a Wii, perhaps it works due to its hardware, but the ps3 and 360, not so fast.

You need to give some examples of 8th gen games that look ugly. Because I do not miss 90% of current-gen games being brown/yellow/grey and slathered in bloom.

And this meme isn't even factoring the fun little quirk where instead of having a health bar, a lot of games would denote low health by turning the screen red or gray and slathering blood everywhere.

Japanese games withstanding, LBP was an odd one out back then.

Games doo look like doo doo nowadays. Good news you can actually play old games!

To me, the games being brown/yellow/grey issue... I would say the trend of that visual style started with 6th gen, but carried for a while into 7th. Honestly, that piss filter is nicer than the modern blurring in games.

There is something more artsy and nicer. Piss Filters like Jak 2 don't look too horrible.

The reason greys/browns/yellows were used due to their color palette works rather well and masks limitations, but can be very bad. To be fair this is the ps3 version of Jak 2,

This is the ps2... The Gray aren't bad here at all, though. I can agree how one could think these games are UGLY. The mood setting is something I like about the lack of saturation, but if I had to pick my poison.

THIS IS ACCEPTABLE VS. BLUR FILTER AND NO ART DIRECTION THAT IS JUST REALISM.

I have a PS3 still for a reason, doesn't mean I play it, but when I look at games like THIS...

I feel like 7th tried to be more ambitious than 8th, but I don't miss the games running like dog sh*t from that era though.

That bloom effect I would say would've been acceptable like on 6th generation hardware as of the CRT's filtering, but on an HD display with a much crisper image at the time.

Something tells me that this is either a trick question or are oddly nostalgia blinded for something that people love to take the piss out of. (Yeah, a war-torn realistic setting is rarely colorful, but still)

Sounds to me like you're just playing the wrong games or don't remember how mud colored their 2010s counterparts were. With a couple exceptions, all the heavily stylized games I remember fondly were closer to mid-budget AA games, which is exactly where most of the stylized games of today are coming from.

Wait until, I guess later generations may say " LOOK AT HOW BLURRY THIS GAME IS! ".

The time gap between the lauch of the Xbox 360 and the Xbox Series X is roughly the same as the gap between the lauch of the Xbox 360 and the Super Nintendo.

I guess it is due to living a more rural and poor state. As the early 2000's till 2012 is when I stopped playing on PS2. So the rate of visual change to me is more sudden as I was on the ps3 from 2013 ~ 2015 and those were the best memories I've had... The distance between Xbox 360 and Xbox Series X is STRANGE. As most people I knew were still on the PS2 thanks to Guitar Hero and Rockband! The 2006 and beyond era on 7th gen I would say is the end of retro though.

Due to the types of games you will find have connectivity and online being the norm, outside of PC.

PS3 and 360 feel not much different from ps4 and xbox 1 though... I think this is could also be due to my age. As I was a teen and time was slow, now I am an adult time is fast... I remember I used to worry about math, but now just bills, taxes, and careers that would be better for me. It feels weird knowing I was playing stuff in 720p mostly. 1080p on PC though... The models on the PS3 just feel like they are "Good enough?"

To be fair I thought during post-PSP that the DS seriously looked out of place, but it feels weird knowing I emulated DS games during that system's life. 2006 being 14 years ago is surprising... I feel like there is something wrong with the art direction these days?

i feel like it's gotten to the point where they're trying to be so realistic, it ends up looking worse. For example, Gamecube to Wii U water (in my opinion) looks more realistic than say, water on the PS5 (IN MY OPINION). It's sort of like, we only really perceive so detail in objects and water and stuff, that at some point of detail, it looks worse than reality. I think devs just need to get back to that sweet spot. Again though, maybe I just really want to drink the water from Wave Race.

rip miiverse water guy

Don't think I didn't catch MGS4 and MGS3 in there

I'm actually happy that recent games become trashier and trashier.

It allow the big company to show their truth personalities and get dump in the dirt

faster than ever!

Indie game developers are thriving because of that. (Except Pocket Pair Inc..)

You are right, and for reason, why do video game developers feel the need to even give models to dentures and eyeballs? Like it would be better if they were one model, and find better way to give off an illusion of someone being chopped to pieces if the game is violent. But yeah, I hate those stupid attempts at imitating realistic live action into games, and Concord is a great example of how shit AAA developers are.

Sorry to break it to ya, but '06 was eighteen years ago.

You know why. It's the sigmoid curve of technology and tech companies trying to keep it going. Back in the day, a hardware upgrade really meant something and we had a stark difference in, say, SNES to N64, PS1 to PS2, and even from PS2 to PS3. But now we've reached the plateau part of the curve. We're past the exponential upgrade power. So it's just refinement on top of refinement to the point it's not noticeable anymore, because graphical fidelity are all that matters in video games because of the calcified lowbrow philistinism culture of "DA GRAPHICS" has been slow to die because most of the wider industry hasn't acknowledged the change except for Nintendo. But they pump it up by requiring new games use the new technology to justify this growth based symbiotic ecosystem of capitalism. So now we have the PS5 with like one good game and a lot of backports.

Limitations breed creativity. When you can't put 1000% into everything because of hardware limitations, you have to be much more clever, conservative, and thoughtful with your graphics processing power, necessitating smarter workarounds and hacks to make the most of what you got. Why do you think pixel art is still so beloved? Because when you can't put characters in full detail, you focus on the cutesy chibi style, an art form in and of itself. But with a simulacrum of reality, those choices are less and less impactful without the leaning into stylization. You can have both, but if fidelity is a pillar of visual design, the stylization will always suffer, being the lower priority, making it less driven by expression than verisimilitude.

the lack of art direction mostly

the race for realism is tossing artistic intent to the side and letting everything fall into the uncanny valley

I enjoy pixel art, why else did I buy FlipWitch... It's one part raunchy, but one part the pixel art is beautiful if can accept the 18+ crap in it. Chibi characters are nice as I view it as a drawing / rendering technique to avoid going too detailed unless need to.

Ok, why are we going back to the while realistic graphic rigmarole again? It almost feels like people are clutching at straws now over a tired old argument over graphics that seems to lean more towards cherry picking than actual preference.

I have no real opinion on this as i dont really care for most modern video games, but i asked my boyfriend who is a bit of a gamer and his response was "no"

Honestly, I kind of feel like modern indies suffer this issue too. I think other than Pizza Tower, certain indie gems that sadly get overlooked or even games that come from here, most indie games nowadays feel the same and aren't really that ambitions then let's say indies were from the 2000's or early 2010's. And the funny thing is, those old indie games usually are "mid" to the soy discord and reddit mods/ twitter users that are apart of THE current gaming industry...

._. Damn.

To me that's how I've felt with PS3 VS. PS4. When I saw that the PS4 in 2014 couldn't do 60FPS and 1080p, as a PC Gamer, that was hilarious. I like how people are just now complaining about the lack of power THE SWITCH CAN DO, but don't say nothing about how terribly underpowered the PS4 was. The reason I call the ps4 underpowered, but the switch not for the same stuff. For home hardware, I remember kind of detesting the marketing gimmick of the PS4 of " HEY WE GOT GRAPHICS! " Then I see paid online is mandatory. Yeah that made me really detest that system. As I would say the switch has even worse online, but... How do you get even worse than the PS3's online? ._.

Nintendo I will give credit for being the innovators of the industry or experimental people. Motion controls, a good system budget, and when it comes to first part releases. I can't give them issues for it, unlike the PS4 and no legacy ps2 characters. They really killed my reason for brand loyalty with the constant attacking animé games.

One of the most recent indie titles I played was... FlipSwitch and holy sh*t... For an indie-NSFW game... It's good for a SFW work game, but exceptional. Critical Bliss are one of the few publish/developers that can impress me. I find there is just too much pixel art for indie titles, but I can't say that is a bad thing due to if it leaves more room for a fast development, neat animations, or focused on gameplay. Pizza Tower I feel like was a niche filler, but that's actually a positive as. Why won't Nintendo make another Wario Land game?