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3DS and bad fonts.

S

Salsa

Member
what's with this issue? always been there in plenty of games

I finally started playing Spirit of Justice and im instantly reminded of this, which was also an issue in Dual Destinies and honestly in.. a lot of games. Puzzle & Dragons Super Mario Edition also comes to mind

6kbJt6X.png


it's like all fonts are designed for a different width and the 3DS' screen squishes them or something

I realize the screen's resolution aint the best, but unless im mistaken I think it comes down to just font choice? I know some games have text as small and dont have this kerning and spacing (and blurriness?) issue

it's not a dealbreaker, but it gives plenty of games this sort of bootleg / emulated feel. They're just not great for keeping a comfortable reading flow.
 
entremet

entremet

Member
Low resolution basically. Fonts are very resolution dependent. You may find better fonts, but it limits your options considerably.
 
M

mullet2000

Member
Hmm, I like the font in the Phoenix Wright games. It is a little blurry though, I guess.

Now, you want to see a terrible font? Look up Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.
 
P

Phatcorns

Member
Does it have something to do with 3d vs. 2d and how it displays them? Like some pixels are missing when it's in 2d maybe? I don't know, just a guess.
 
D

donny2112

Member
Salsa said:
what's with this issue? always been there in plenty of games

I finally started playing Spirit of Justice and im instantly reminded of this, which was also an issue in Dual Destinies and honestly in.. a lot of games. Puzzle & Dragons Super Mario Edition also comes to mind

6kbJt6X.png


it's like all fonts are designed for a different width and the 3DS' screen squishes them or something

I realize the screen's resolution aint the best, but unless im mistaken I think it comes down to just font choice? I know some games have text as small and dont have this kerning and spacing (and blurriness?) issue

it's not a dealbreaker, but it gives plenty of games this sort of bootleg / emulated feel. They're just not great for keeping a comfortable reading flow.
Click to expand...

The image of of Dual Destinies, right? Playing through Spirit of Justice currently (when FEH isn't taking all my time), so pretty sure this was the earlier one.

Did you try switching to 3-D to see if it improved? Maybe there's something wonky with the fonts to make it work in 3-D?
 
H

hampig

Member
WonderzL said:
Absolutely not. Plenty of text based games on 3ds that don't look like that.
Click to expand...

They may have taken the low resolution into better consideration when choosing their font. Dunno. Could just be however they're choosing to display the font. Are there other examples?
 
S

Salsa

Member
mullet2000 said:
Now, you want to see a terrible font? Look up Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.
Click to expand...

true

it feels very weird as a decision considering this is supposedly the system for which the games were designed (tho I guess PW lives on mobile now too)

I do think it comes down to font choice but it's a problem they keep repeating, as if they didnt test for legibility when played on the actual screens it was designed for

donny2112 said:
The image of of Dual Destinies, right? Playing through Spirit of Justice currently (when FEH isn't taking all my time), so pretty sure this was the earlier one.

Did you try switching to 3-D to see if it improved? Maybe there's something wonky with the fonts to make it work in 3-D?
Click to expand...

it's very obvious to me coming from other games or even from older PW

I can see how it might not be super obvious but it is pretty jarring IMO. 3D on or Off does barely anything

it IS a minor thing but it's like a tiny splinter bothering a bit. Text heavy games should be as pleasant to read as possible
 
G

Gattsu25

Banned
mullet2000 said:
Hmm, I like the font in the Phoenix Wright games. It is a little blurry though, I guess.

Now, you want to see a terrible font? Look up Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.
Click to expand...

OH MY GOD

MH3U on 3DS was damn near unreadable at times. Worst font I've ever seen since the DOS days.
 
J

jooey

The Motorcycle That Wouldn't Slow Down
The AA games do have an annoying font and many 3DS games have wonky font antialiasing, yes.

but you'll love it all compared to That One DS Font

clipboard01rps6f.png
 
G

Graphics Horse

Member
There's no good explanation for it, but I'm guessing the Japanese version doesn't have the same problem? I'd guess it's an error in programming somewhere rather than someone making a weird font, but that error could be on the tools side rather than the 3DS side, no way of knowing without looking into the game art/code.
 
B

Blue-kun

Member
It's bad, but hey, when you're old enough to have lived through PSX and especially having experienced Wild ARMs 2's font, this is a walk in the park.

Now this is some real special font.

Wild%20Arms%202-2.jpg
 
Toadthemushroom

Toadthemushroom

Member
It tends to be an issue with games that don't place text in pixel-perfect increments. Play Bravely Default's demo, talk to someone (whose text bubble isn't in the foreground in 3D space), then mess with the 3D slider and watch the clarity of text change as the duel images' convergence and depth changes).

Then play Bravely Second's demo and do the same thing. You'll notice text only moves in pixel-increments, so it's sharp all the time.

The Etrian Odyssey games also do that, which is great.
 
S

Santiako

Member
mullet2000 said:
Hmm, I like the font in the Phoenix Wright games. It is a little blurry though, I guess.

Now, you want to see a terrible font? Look up Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.
Click to expand...

Aye, truly awful. You had to fiddle with the 3D level to make it look crisper, but it looked super blurry most of the time.

RUuSkIz.jpg
 
B

bbkkristian

Member
I know this is a thread about bad fonts, but an example of a good font on 3DS is Etrian Odyssey, and Bravely Default. I love those fonts.
 
G

Gattsu25

Banned
jooey said:
The AA games do have an annoying font and many 3DS games have wonky font antialiasing, yes.

but you'll love it all compared to That One DS Font

clipboard01rps6f.png
Click to expand...

Maybe I spent too much time playing old DOS games growing up but that is readable to me at all zoom levels
 
D

Dot-N-Run

Member
mullet2000 said:
Hmm, I like the font in the Phoenix Wright games. It is a little blurry though, I guess.

Now, you want to see a terrible font? Look up Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.
Click to expand...

I honestly thought the thread was going to be about that MH font. Who thought that was a good idea?

Also if I remember correctly, Dead Rising on an non-hd tv was also almost unreadable as well. What is it with Capcom and text being impossible to read?
 
C

cress2000

Member
Gattsu25 said:
Maybe I spent too much time playing old DOS games growing up but that is readable to me at all zoom levels
Click to expand...

It's readable, but it's still ugly. Squishing W/w and M/m into four/five pixels of width offends me as someone who has worked directly on translations of retro games.
 
Xion_Stellar

Xion_Stellar

People should stop referencing data that makes me feel uncomfortable because games get ported to platforms I don't like
mullet2000 said:
Now, you want to see a terrible font? Look up Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.
Click to expand...
Can confirm the font was horrible I literally went out and bought a 3DS XL back than just so I can read the damm text.
 
A

Aleh

Member
A good example of crisp fonts is Animal Crossing New Leaf. It's so nice to look at compared to most games.
 
M

Man God

Non-Canon Member
Resolution doesn't really excuse it as most lower resolution systems had their own mix of good and bad fonts. It's just poor planning, usually stemming from people trying to be unique.
 
C

cress2000

Member
Gattsu25 said:
Oh, I'm not saying it's good. But it's legible even at 'per-pixel' scale.

That MH3U font, on the other hand...
Click to expand...

Fair point! I'm just biased because that DS font has bothered me for ages with my past experience. It kinda reeks of being some kind of internal system font with funky limitations, but I don't know the real details behind it.
 
D

Durante

Member
It's hard to say for certain with the JPG in the OP, but at least on the "o" it really looks very much like a rendering/filtering issue. Even at low resolution you should be able to do far better with a properly 1:1 pixel mapped font.
 
R

Ravelle

Member
It's still better than Destiny's plain ass yellow paragraphs they dump on screen, it felt like watching a bootleg DVD.
 
DJ_Lae

DJ_Lae

Member
I've been playing through Yo-Kai Watch 2 on my 3ds and I've noticed that they use a pleasant font - I think it was the same for Fantasy Life, though maybe a bit smaller size in that game.

TKaDxB3.jpg


It's nice and crisp even on such a shitty screen.
 
J

jooey

The Motorcycle That Wouldn't Slow Down
LightningXCE said:
Er, sorry.

I meant the GBA games, it's used in some smaller text boxes.
Click to expand...

so yeah I guess it's like a quasi-half-width version of the main/default system font, which I suppose works for kana characters but ruins m/w. It's just that some games used it when they prrrrobably didn't need to
 
W

Wiped89

Member
entremet said:
Low resolution basically. Fonts are very resolution dependent. You may find better fonts, but it limits your options considerably.
Click to expand...

It's NOT a resolution issue. The GBA had the resolution of a potato and all the Pokemon games had perfectly legible text. Same for the DS.
 
M

M3d10n

Member
Durante said:
It's hard to say for certain with the JPG in the OP, but at least on the "o" it really looks very much like a rendering/filtering issue. Even at low resolution you should be able to do far better with a properly 1:1 pixel mapped font.
Click to expand...

Yes. It looks like the developers didn't do their homework properly when coding the text rendering. In consoles like the 3DS and the PSP, everything is actually textures mapped in polygons, so extra care is needed to make sure the texels are mapped to screen pixels at 1:1.

Also, in that PW screenshot it's obvious the geometry used to show certain characters is cropping the glyphs in the texture at tad too much. That's why some characters look "squished": they are actually being cut off because the quad their texture is placed on is too small to display the character fully.
 
S

Salsa

Member
DJ_Lae said:
I've been playing through Yo-Kai Watch 2 on my 3ds and I've noticed that they use a pleasant font - I think it was the same for Fantasy Life, though maybe a bit smaller size in that game.

TKaDxB3.jpg


It's nice and crisp even on such a shitty screen.
Click to expand...

got this recently so good to know. nice example of the sizing and res not being the issue
 
M

MechaX

Member
Blue-kun said:
It's bad, but hey, when you're old enough to have lived through PSX and especially having experienced Wild ARMs 2's font, this is a walk in the park.

Now this is some real special font.

Wild%20Arms%202-2.jpg
Click to expand...

I have mentally associated this font with "headache" ever since I was a kid and things have not changed.
 
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