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Which "Metroidvania" has the best graphics?

Marty-McFly

Banned
Nintendo had very little to do with the development of this title, which was outsourced to MercurySteam, a Spanish studio. Fumi Hayashi received a credit as co-director as he kind of oversaw the Spanish team and Sakamoto produced it.

Far from receiving tips from Nintendo on how to handle their hardware, in fact Sakamoto said that Nintendo revived the project after seeing what MercurySteam had already done with its technology on the Switch
You mean other than Nintendo EPD co-developing it?

One of the best games and best looking and playing sidescrollers ever imo. Not surprising Nintendo co-developed it.
 
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Dr Bass

Member
Absolutely, suspect that's the reason there isn't a poll. Nothing even comes close to Ori, especially Will of the Wisps
Of course not. :rolleyes:

Have you PLAYED all of the other games? My guess is ... no.

I would probably vote for the Ori games myself as well, but it's actually really close for a lot of reasons. This "nothing even comes close" tripe is more console fanboysim (or fangirlism).

Anyway, onto the topic ...

I am convinced people bashing Dread have never played it. It's a great looking game, with a lot of style. Massive chozo ruins, fantastic animation, with a lot of subtle details from Samus, the best 2D game control I've ever experienced in this genre (though that doesn't have to do with visuals I guess ...), great use of camera and camera angles at times. The visuals in the game are great.

But none of this is objective and I can see pros and cons for each.

For Ori, even though it would probably get my vote, there is a LOT of repeated visuals, or at least style of visual. And of course that is normal for a game. But even though it's a pretty dense and "lush" presentation it has the feel of a heavily layered photoshop PSD, with a lot of "copy and paste" to me. I actually like the use of the foreground visuals with plenty of DOF (and kinda wished Dread used it more than the 1 or 2 times that it did), but I think people are confusing "beautiful forest" to equate to "beautiful game" in a technical sense. Again, it's a great looking game, but it's also pretty obviously a Unity based 3D game presented in a 2D manner. Way too much o the animation looks like moving around 2D textured planes to simulate lifelike movement. But it doesn't come across that way at all. it comes across as undulating 2D planes. At least IMO. The support characters tends to look really really great, such as whatever that giant frog guy was. I forget what his name was, played it awhile ago. Ori himself is completely generic and bland, both as a character design and his movement/animation. Like I said, probably still gets my vote in an overall sense, but it's extremely close.

I don't think Hollow Knight is it at all. The hand drawn aspect looks TOO hand drawn, practically by an artist with a "mediocre skill set" type of vibe I think. Harkens back to Flash-era games too much with hard contrasty lines and very low counts on frames of animation. A game that excels in moodiness and atmosphere (largely due to the color palette and music), but suffers in gameplay execution and actual visual quality.

Super Metroid. Classic and timeless. Will never get old IMO. Is actually close to the top still for me. I don't think ANYTHING has ever executed the mood of these games as well as the opening space station sequence (that ambient sound is fantastic) or the feeling of landing on Zebes with the raging storm, and the low strings playing combined with the oddly choral like notes above them. Even though the graphics are 16-bit, I can remember few game sequences that truly made me feel like I was "there" like the landing sequence did, and still does. The entire game has moments like this.

Symphony of the Night is similar. Classic and timeless sprite work. It will also never get old.

For me there is still room for something that can be "the best" in this area. I'd like something with the timelessness of Super Metroid, combined with the density of Ori, but it would also need to be pure 2D sprite work through and through, where it could also take advantage of zooming in and out, using DOF well etc. Ori is just too obviously pseudo 2D while trying to present itself as pure 2D. I imagine a project like that would just be too laborious and time intensive, when you can make it likely much faster in the style of Dread and still have a great game. Ah well.

So like I said, Ori probably gets my vote still but it's DAMN close and other games do some things better without question IMO.

Nintendo had very little to do with the development of this title, which was outsourced to MercurySteam, a Spanish studio. Fumi Hayashi received a credit as co-director as he kind of oversaw the Spanish team and Sakamoto produced it.

Far from receiving tips from Nintendo on how to handle their hardware, in fact Sakamoto said that Nintendo revived the project after seeing what MercurySteam had already done with its technology on the Switch
That's not what MercurySteam said.
 

Brofist

Member
This is obviously a very subjective topic. I still think SotN is the pinnacle of looks in this style of game, with the Ori games being next.
 
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TidusYuna

Member
Xeodrifter blows everything out of the water.

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S0ULZB0URNE

Member
Neither of the above are remotely true.

Claiming one looks better than the other is subjective, but Dread looks way better imo

But saying Dread looks trash is just absolute nonsense. Get some glasses.
Not saying it's ugly but It is on the soft side.
Maybe if it gets resolution enhanced on a new Nintendo machine it would help?
 

Marty-McFly

Banned
Not saying it's ugly but It is on the soft side.
Maybe if it gets resolution enhanced on a new Nintendo machine it would help?
Ori's art style makes it look a lot softer to me.

I think it's because of the overuse of filters and simple character models that don't pop.

It looks like a lower budget indie production, which is fine, but in a film festival kind of way.

I think Dread is one of the best looking 2D games ever, but to each their own.
Record of Lodoss War

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8XcizXO.gif


81c8ffe1e3a43838e548a450982af65c7f7b1ea4.gif


basically SOTN at 4x the pixels
C2CB20752534BCA65BBE9A8225373EF8E37C1491
I like the art style a lot.
 
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S0ULZB0URNE

Member
Ori's art style makes it look a lot softer to me.

I think it's because of the overuse of filters and simple character models that don't pop.

It looks like a lower budget indie production, which is fine, but in a film festival kind of way.

I think Dread is one of the best looking 2D games ever, but to each their own.

I like the art style a lot.
Ori is in on the soft side as well 🤷
 

Marty-McFly

Banned
Ori and it's not even debateable.

Also, the Generic EMMI bots are an embarrassment compared to the beasts that chase you in Ori.
No offence but it sounds like you haven't played Dread. The Emmi encounters are brilliant but relatively rare compared to the dozens of other lifeforms you encounter in the game, and the bosses are some of the best of all time.
 
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Marty-McFly

Banned
It’s not even close, a truly visual (and playable) masterpiece.

Metroid Dread looks generic as fuck, sorry.
Dread has an awesome visual style. Just because it doesn't look like post processing effects are vomited all over the screen doesn't mean the artwork is not fantastic.
 

Jsisto

Member
If we’re talking about overall art direction and variety of environments, I’d personally have to give it to Hollow Knight. Sure it may not be as flashy graphically, but it’s amazing what they were able to do with a small budget. I love the hand drawn art style, and while this thread is not about music, it’s hard for me to detach the amazing soundtrack from the experience, Even thinking about Hollow Knight reminds me of the music, it brings the game to life.

I absolutely loved Dread, and from a technical standpoint it’s hard for me to argue against it being the most impressive of the ones I’ve played. I just feel like outside of a few specific instances and scenes, all the environments were very samey and evoked the same feeling. I definitely need to check out Ori soon, I’ve put off playing it for so long.
 

Impotaku

Member
I get that metroid fans are excited because there's finally a new game out and them wanting the latest release to do well and are trying to spread word of mouth but holy shit the way it's been portrayed online by them just reeks of desperation to get people to like it. Compared to what came before it the game looks so damn by the numbers compared to metroid prime, the tiny size of samus doesn't make it look good either she looks a lot smaller than she did back on the 8 & 16 bit versions. The 2 games on gamecube were amazing as you explored places that totally felt like alien worlds but dread's graphical style puts me off it doesn't have the same kind of wonder and sense of totally unknown exploration that prime had. And i will totally agree Ori stomps all over this that games animation quality looks incredible to the point that it's sat under the tree waiting for me for xmas as when i saw that the switch had a double pack of both games i totally jumped on it after watching trailers. Something that dread failed to do as after watching some trailers & gameplay it left me not wanting to try it. I'll wait till they eventually release prime 4 for my metroid gaming fix i personally prefer metroid from the perspective of samus's eyes..

I thought blasphemous was pretty cool

ced7c9d1a8185381d951269cbe8f1f1d.gif

This is one that's sat on my amazon wish list it was a toss up between that or dead cells so i picked up cells first as i have heard nothing but good stuff about that one but this is on for picking up on this months payday the graphical style looks intriguing, been going through all the western indie type stuff at the moment and adding a shitload of games to my buy list.
 
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Tschumi

Member
I get that metroid fans are excited because there's finally a new game out and them wanting the latest release to do well and are trying to spread word of mouth but holy shit the way it's been portrayed online by them just reeks of desperation to get people to like it. Compared to what came before it the game looks so damn by the numbers compared to metroid prime, the tiny size of samus doesn't make it look good either she looks a lot smaller than she did back on the 8 & 16 bit versions. The 2 games on gamecube were amazing as you explored places that totally felt like alien worlds but dread's graphical style puts me off it doesn't have the same kind of wonder and sense of totally unknown exploration that prime had. And i will totally agree Ori stomps all over this that games animation quality looks incredible to the point that it's sat under the tree waiting for me for xmas as when i saw that the switch had a double pack of both games i totally jumped on it after watching trailers. Something that dread failed to do as after watching some trailers & gameplay it left me not wanting to try it. I'll wait till they eventually release prime 4 for my metroid gaming fix i personally prefer metroid from the perspective of samus's eyes..



This is one that's sat on my amazon wish list it was a toss up between that or dead cells so i picked up cells first as i have heard nothing but good stuff about that one but this is on for picking up on this months payday the graphical style looks intriguing, been going through all the western indie type stuff at the moment and adding a shitload of games to my buy list.
it's a trip, i used to have it on my switch for when i felt like a bit of self flagellation rofl
 

mxbison

Member
Ori absolutely destroys Dred in graphics department imo.

FIST also looks really good but I haven't played it.
 

Marty-McFly

Banned
It's almost like this thread was created so the OP could attack every opinion that's not Dread and try to convince them that they're wrong. With no bias of course.
Disagreeing is not attacking or trolling. We're all entitled to our opinions here and I usually interact with members of all my threads, rare as they are these days.

Sorry, I just can't get with these "Ori absolutely destroys Dread visually" takes piling up in these threads, especially when the evidence in the pics and gifs shows the exact opposite in this thread to my eyes. I've beaten both Ori's and these small smudgy gifs are not exactly helping Ori's cause here.
 

Impotaku

Member
Maybe there's a reason why people are saying ori destroys dread graphically (myself included) because maybe it actually does, it's hardly a pile on if a lot of people come to the same conclusion there's youtube videos of both games so you don't actually have to rely on cherry picked gifs to see. Saying smudgy gif isn't helping, you are correct however that's not the game you play in person go watch a video of what it looks like if you are playing and say again dread beats it graphically. Look how static the backgrounds are in dread compared to ori there's hardly any animation going on just a bare minimum in the dread trailer. Then look at the backgrounds in ori the whole world feels alive and i'm not just on about cutscenes. Same with the boss animations ori they look way more animated.





In the end nintendo failed with their trailer for metroid it didn't make me want to buy it at all, even less enticement when the double pack of ori games on switch cost less than the price of dread. 2 great looking games vs a bland looking metroid.
 

Blackage

Member
I don't even particularly like the Ori games over Hollow Knight or Metroid Dread, but I'd say it's the best looking one of the bunch easily.
 

Komatsu

Member
You mean other than Nintendo EPD co-developing it?

One of the best games and best looking and playing sidescrollers ever imo. Not surprising Nintendo co-developed it.

This again? Oh well, let's get to it...

In bold are all the Japanese staff in the game. They are either Nintendo EPD employees (Hayashi), Nintendo core execs (Sakamoto) or freelancers contracted by NOJ.

Everyone else is working either for MercurySteam or was contracted by them directly. There is not a single EPD developer in a programming, special effects, 3D modelling, lighting art, environmental art, game and/or level design. If I take the localization teams into account as well, less than 10% of the people involved have any employment/contract link to NOJ. And bear in mind that MercurySteam did not list many of its own developers in the credits, as plenty have complained on social media.

So, if contributing, what?, 8% of the staff - none in the core technical departments - makes this a Nintendo EPD game in your head, well... Don't let reality stop you.

Metroid Dread said:
METROID DREAD CREDITS

Producer
Yoshio Sakamoto


Creative Director
José Luis Márquez Arroyo

Director
Fumihiko Hayashi

Assistant Directors
Takehiko Hosokawa, Christian Fernandez Santiso

Programming Director
Alfonso Valladolid Ferrández

Art Director
Jorge Benedito Chicharro

Music Director
Kenji Yamamoto

Coordination
Paul Logue

Production Lead
Ánima Berriatúa

Production Coordination
Gádor Valls Osorio

Assistant Producers
Ester Zanón Fernández, Marina Alonso Del Amo, Francisco Tapia Tellarini

Level Design Lead
Arturo Sánchez Eiras

Level Design A
leix Garrido Oberink

Game Design
José María Navarro Herrera, Carlos Zarzuela Sánchez, Jacobo Luengo

Programming Lead
Fernando Zazo Muñoz

Main Programming
Jorge Mendoza Castejón, David Llansó García, Gonzalo Flórez Puga, Ángel Luis Cabrero Senderos, Asier Sánchez Rodriguez, Guillermo Bañuls Aizpiri

Programming
Carlos Fraguas Pizarro, Gonzalo Martín Villaescusa, Álvaro Valera Vázquez, Olmo Prieto Sánchez, Arturo González Díaz, Víctor Tobes Pérez, Laura Barrenengoa Clemente, Jon Diego Martínez

Concept Artists
David Escribano Herrero, André Mateus Ferreira Pinheiro, Concepción Díez Sánchez, Moisés Míguez González, Daniel Mallada Rodríguez, Daniel Alexandre Gonçalves Picanço, Raúl Arbeloa Santos

3D Modelling Lead
Angel Román Barriopedro

3D Modelling
Javier Candela García, Héctor Sanz D'Ors, Francesco Davide Filianoti, Santiago García Berrocal, Roberto Mejías (uncredited)

Visual Effects Lead
Álvaro García Arredondo

Visual Effects Artists
Rafael Machó Alcaraz, José Manuel Moreno Valderrama, Darin Aranda Ahmed, Christian González Suárez, Jesús Arenas Civantos, Gerard Mateo Casas

Lighting Artist
Raoni Rodríguez Viña

Environment Art Leads
Pedro José Torres, Miguel Pascual Romero

Environment Artists
Javier de Andrés Illescas, Anxo Sotelo Pérez, Oscar Beteta Valdepeñas, Fátima Trevilla Campos, Juan Pablo Paredes Rodríguez, María Romero Robina, Ester Agudo Gómez, Luis Fábregas González, Andrés Burgos Sánchez de la Blanca, Adrián Zambrana Acquaroni, Manuel Mejías González, Nicolás Alegre Soto, Jorge Gómez Mourelle, Pablo Blanes Montes, Sergio Aloguín, Roberto Mejías (uncredited)

Rigging Lead
Miguel Orrego Torrado

Rigging
José Carlos Ramírez Sánchez

Animation Lead
Alberto Camarasa Cámara

Game Animation
Alberto Fernández Vázquez, Luis Pardo Anaya, Ignacio Astorga Coto, María Cosgaya Martínez, Daniel Rodrigo Solanas, Bernat Gil i Massó, Alberto Muñoz Sánchez, Pilar Rodríguez Pérez, Rubén Martínez Roda, Carla Lombardo i Lliró, Paula Porta Vázquez, Santiago García Berrocal

Cutscenes Animation Lead
Ricardo Sánchez Castro

Cutscenes Animation
José Miguel Moreno (Pepemi), Leandro Adeodato De Albuquerque, Irene Gaudioso, Guillermo Pozo Rodríguez, Laura Ruiz Chóliz, Pablo Manresa Molina, Biel Gil Gosálvez, Marc Carbonell García, Daniel de Gustín Reinoso, Tania Peñaranda (uncredited)

Art Supervisors
Takayasu Morisawa, Fumiko Miyamoto

Package Design
Yuki Ijiri

Illustration
Yu Yamamoto

Sound Coordination
Minako Hamano

Music & Arrangement
Soshi Abe, Sayako Doi

Sound Leads
Emilio Gutiérrez López, Pablo Balaguer de Diego

Sound Design
Ignacio Blázquez Roelas, David Bolaños Gallardo

Audio Technical Support
Yuichi Ozaki

Original Metroid Music
Kenji Yamamoto (did not work on the game)

Voices
Stephen Hughes, Dave Rogers, Nikki García, Holly Renaut

Voice Direction
Stephen Hughes

Voice Edition
DRAX Audio
 
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Marty-McFly

Banned
This again? Oh well, let's get to it...

In bold are all the Japanese staff in the game. They are either Nintendo EPD employees (Hayashi), Nintendo core execs (Sakamoto) or freelancers contracted by NOJ.

Everyone else is working either for MercurySteam or was contracted by them directly. There is not a single EPD developer in a programming, special effects, 3D modelling, lighting art, environmental art, game and/or level design. If I take the localization teams into account as well, less than 10% of the people involved have any employment/contract link to NOJ. And bear in mind that MercurySteam did not list many of its own developers in the credits, as plenty have complained on social media.

So, if contributing, what?, 8% of the staff - none in the core technical departments - makes this a Nintendo EPD game in your head, well... Don't let reality stop you.
So the producer and director of Dread are Nintendo EPD employees?

Do you realise how significant that it?

They basically oversaw the entire project which is hardly surprising as it's MS's best game ever by a landslide.
 

Marty-McFly

Banned
Maybe there's a reason why people are saying ori destroys dread graphically (myself included) because maybe it actually does, it's hardly a pile on if a lot of people come to the same conclusion there's youtube videos of both games so you don't actually have to rely on cherry picked gifs to see. Saying smudgy gif isn't helping, you are correct however that's not the game you play in person go watch a video of what it looks like if you are playing and say again dread beats it graphically. Look how static the backgrounds are in dread compared to ori there's hardly any animation going on just a bare minimum in the dread trailer. Then look at the backgrounds in ori the whole world feels alive and i'm not just on about cutscenes. Same with the boss animations ori they look way more animated.





In the end nintendo failed with their trailer for metroid it didn't make me want to buy it at all, even less enticement when the double pack of ori games on switch cost less than the price of dread. 2 great looking games vs a bland looking metroid.

I get that you're a fan of the artsy, muddy, filtered look of Ori... I'm not, but I think we can both agree that would be absolutely terrible look to go with for Metroid. Everything in Dread needs to be very clearly visualised as it's a very precise, difficult game with a lot going on.
 
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Monad

Member
Dread has an awesome visual style. Just because it doesn't look like post processing effects are vomited all over the screen doesn't mean the artwork is not fantastic.

Cool, throw me that vomited post processing effects straight to the face and keep your generic awesome visual style masterpiece in a chest under seven keys just for your guilty pleasure.

Everyone happy.
 

eNT1TY

Member
Dread is visually lazy as shit. It screams low budget at every turn. It has a distinct lack of visual variety in its environments with four distinct biomes with some color grading to fake like 10 areas. There are a whopping 3 types of navigable platforms/floors that look mostly detached from their background/environment with some slight configuration changes between the types such as techie metal floor with narrow tiles or techie metal floor with big rectangular tiles; rocky shit by itself or rocky shit with some scattered grass or a mushroom or a coral. The lighting is flat with nothing samus does interacting with the background or foreground; weapon effects do not emit light or cast shadows nor do explosions. In fact, there are no emissive light sources period. Some background objects may exhibit some prebaked lighting animations but even those have no bearing on main foreground objects and mobs or the player. Some bosses are neat, that's about it. 10 year old Trine 2 looks better and does a hell of a lot more technically. Ori is on a whole different league. Dread at best is merely the best looking Metroid by virtue of being newer. Hollow Knight is about as visually diverse as Dread but triple the charm. Dread is a good game and even manages to look decent despite all the cut corners but it is nowhere near the top graphically. Don't let the cinematic angles fool you.
 

Komatsu

Member
So the producer and director of Dread are Nintendo EPD employees?

The project head was Jose Luis Marquez, who is listed as "Creative Director". Producers are not usually involved in the day-to-day development of a title. But, again, if you think Hayashi and Sakamoto were responsible for the excellence produced by a technical team of over 40 people, not a single one of them a Nintendo employee, it's your prerogative.
 

Marty-McFly

Banned
The project head was Jose Luis Marquez, who is listed as "Creative Director". Producers are not usually involved in the day-to-day development of a title. But, again, if you think Hayashi and Sakamoto were responsible for the excellence produced by a technical team of over 40 people, not a single one of them a Nintendo employee, it's your prerogative.
Nintendo's staff are looking over all their projects, other than the Pokemon Company.

That's why companies who work with them like Rare and Mercury Steam are so much better under Nintendo's guidance and co-development in the case of Dread.
 
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The two names that stand out from the thread seem to be Ori and Dread.

I didn't play Ori but the games look absolutely gorgeous.
I didn't play Metroid Dread either, and for the moment I struggle to find it more beautiful than Ori.
Both are in my wishlist though, and I am especially eager to play Metroid Dread, way more than Ori.

Other than that, I had been mesmerized by La-Mulana's backgrounds and the way they scroll. That game makes you observe every single pixel. If I find it beautiful? I don't know, but impressive for sure.

Blasphemous has awesome 2d animations. Not my cup of tea though.
 
What I wanted: a thread that showcased a load of different games with different art styles and from different eras, each with their own distinct artistic strengths.

What I got: console warriors propping up two very specific games, both of which basically look like Christmas lights in a dark black room when put in small animated GIFs.
 

kurisu_1974

is on perm warning for being a low level troll
Does Ori look fuzzy or muddy on console or something? Because I never noticed that when playing those games on PC...

I never played Dread as I try to avoid euro platformers ever since the Amiga days :p
 
Does Ori look fuzzy or muddy on console or something? Because I never noticed that when playing those games on PC...

I never played Dread as I try to avoid euro platformers ever since the Amiga days :p

No, Ori looks super clean. Even on the Switch it runs at 1080/60fps. On XSX and PC it's 4K/120 and up.

What looks muddy are the screenshots OP posted of Dread. He did not do the game any favors with his post.
 
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