Graphics whoring and Frédéric Chopin

Monday, July 17, 2006 » art gaming thought

It must have been around 1996 or so (yes, ten years ago—frightening) that I was looking at one of those import shop ads in the back of a game magazine, and a couple of images caught my eye. The first one was for some Super Famicom Dragonball Z fighting game, showing two of the characters shooting fireballs at each other in 2D, sprite-based glory. Then right next to it was a shot of Square's Tobal No. 1, featuring two fighters battling in full 3D. The juxtaposition between the detailed, hand-drawn sprites and the blocky polygons was particularly striking since both games starred characters designed by Akira Toriyama. Even then, I had the feeling that 2D was on the way out and wondered if 3D graphics would ever be able to recapture the bright, animated look of classic SNES games.

So, ten years later, they're getting pretty close. The last few years have seen plenty of great-looking cel-shaded games released, with Dragon Quest VIII and the amazing-looking Wind Waker among the higher profile titles, but for some reason Trusty Bell (previously seen here) has really grabbed my attention as making a lot of progress in that area. I think a large reason is that it's HD, which means less pixelated outlines and smoother textures. The environments are done in more of a realistic style (sort of like in DQ8), which I first thought was sort of incongruous. After considering it, it actually reminds me of cartoon background art on TV, so maybe that's sort of the accepted aesthetic.

Still, I'd like to see a game that's got hard cel-shading on all the characters, and really cel-looking environments. Or maybe some clever developer can switch things around and have realistically shaded characters exploring a cartoon world.