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Which "Metroidvania" has the best graphics?

Marty-McFly

Banned
Please reply with pics and gifs to help prove your case and opinion.

For me, it's Metroid Dread. As much as I hate calling a Metroid game a "Metroidvania" I will for the sake of this discussion.

People were originally down on Dread's graphics after the initial reveal, saying that the graphics were colourless and lifeless because it essentially just showed the Emmi sections, which are virtually black and white.

When I got the game in my hands that I realised the visuals were not actually just good but actually amazing and 60 fps as well.

Nintendo are absolute wizards what they do with their hardware.

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Marty-McFly

Banned
Ori and the Will 'o the Wisp & Ori and the Blind Forest.
A fairly beautiful game no doubt in an artsy way but it looks like more of a painting and visually cluttered where it's hard to tell what's going on.

A little amateurish and low budget.

Character models look very simple and it looks muddy to me with too many filters and post processing effects.

Dread looks much, much better to me,

but to each their own.
 
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Holammer

Member
Dread's art-sack shrivels in comparison to Ori's meaty bull testes.
But fancy 3D graphics does not equal better, so I prefer Hollow Knight, even Yoku's Island Express art style.

Also give Mercury Steam some credit.
 

SirTerry-T

Member
A beautiful game no doubt but it looks like more of a painting and visually cluttered where it's hard to tell what's going on. Dread looks much better to me but to each their own.
They're two very different things, I love both the clean, cool sci-fi aesthetic of Dread and the painterly approach that the art direction of the Ori games take. Though I get what you are saying about the former's approach making the game ”easier to read".
I must say that, for me, a lot of the Metroidvanias aren't quite up to the level of those two from an art direction point of view, with a lot of them going for that tired mishmash of faux 8-bit/16-bit styling or harkening back to some of those old Flash platformers.

Dread gets bonus points for its top of the class animations on Samus' character model.
 
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Fbh

Member
Sorry I'm on mobile and posting pics is a pain. But:

Ori and the Will of the Wisp.
It's the one that perfectly mixes nice graphics with awesome art direction.

Just purely artistically there's a ton of good stuff though: Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, SOTN, Owlboy (this one is metroidvania-ish), etc.

Dread is an impressive technical achievement on Switch considering how good it looks while running at smooth 60 on the weak hardware. But if you look past the hardware it's running on it didn't really impress me visually or artistically.
 
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Ori probably looks the best.

However I genuinely don't think its worth it to clutter and obscure the gameplay to that degree just to make it look good. Its not pleasant. The game obviously still plays very well but I think sacrifices were made in ease of gameplay just for the sake of graphics. Dread is not the best looking Metroidvania but the decisions they made in terms of visual clarity make it a lot more enjoyable for me.
 

STARSBarry

Gold Member
I am legit laughing at all the metriod Dread posts...

I get it its a Nintendo game and the genre is even named after the series, but it's also one of the worst looking titles in the series. Compared to how Nintendo normally nail a solid look on the weaker switch hardware via amazing use of stylised graphics, Dread sadly is just bad, it looks at times like some fan project made in Unity.

Metriod Dread has alot going for it, but graphics sure as hell ain't it. Christ when it was first shown one of the big things people made fun of was how it looked and unlike Halo it didn't get a year delay to be reworked it released looking the same.

Honestly think Nintendo should have tried for a 2D or 2.5D look to get that 60 FPS while maintaining a good look via use of Sprites, but that's just me.
 
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Marty-McFly

Banned
I am legit laughing at all the metriod Dread posts...

I get it its a Nintendo game and the genre is even named after the series, but it's also one of the worst looking titles in the series. Compared to how Nintendo normally nail a solid look on the weaker switch hardware via amazing use of stylised graphics, Dread sadly is just bad, it looks at times like some fan project made in Unity.

Metriod Dread has alot going for it, but graphics sure as hell ain't it. Christ when it was first shown one of the big things people made fun of was how it looked and unlike Halo it didn't get a year delay to be reworked it released looking the same.

Honestly think Nintendo should have tried for a 2D or 2.5D look to get that 60 FPS while maintaining a good look via use of Sprites, but that's just me.
I can't tell if this post is meant to be a parody. Even this games most ardent haters came around to loving this games graphics after giving it a whirl.






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AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
Ori, then Hollow Knight.

Dread looks fine but it's Metroid and looks like Metroid should in 2021, the EMMI and their bedrooms was a nice aesthetic I guess.

Just doesn't come close to a living, breathing piece of art like Ori. Hollow Knight I can understand why some people think the artstyle is "lazy" but it really works for what the game is, and there's plenty of it. I just think it's more interesting than most 3D things.
 
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