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RedZaraki · Feb 21, 2017

A lot of games from the Sega Saturn and PS1 haven't aged all that well. It was a primitive time for 3D graphics after all. Howevever, hand-drawn sprites had fully hit their stride and looked great. They hold up to this day.

What were the absolute best-looking sprites from that era?

Some off the top of my head strong showings:

Breath of Fire III

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Suikoden 2

Albert Odyssey

lilralphie · Feb 21, 2017

Astal comes to mind for sure.

Zakkath · Feb 21, 2017

SotN was the first game that came to mind. If it's not the best, it's definetly up there.

UnemployedVillain · Feb 21, 2017

I'm surprised you went with BOF3 and not BOF4

Greatest Ever · Feb 21, 2017

Time to look for my Symphony of the Night album again.

Tain · Feb 21, 2017

Best sprite work of that era is gonna be in arcade games.

Street Fighter 3 and Metal Slug.

MrT-Tar · Feb 21, 2017

The first few that came to my mind (other than those already listed) are:

Valkyrie Profile:

Tales of Eternia:

Legend of Mana:

MCD250 · Feb 21, 2017

I really like the look of some of the Street Fighter Alpha games. Especially Alpha 3. They have a lush, beautiful quality to them, and some of them are very fluidly animated as well.

Charlie still looks dope to me.

leroidys · Feb 21, 2017

I'm on mobile so I can't dig up a bunch of links easily, but Breath of Fire 4 and Street Fighter 3 are definitely amongst the best.

manakel · Feb 21, 2017

I could stare at this for hours. King of Fighters always had the best stages.

Edit: I guess it's not exactly a sprite, but still..

theaffection · Feb 21, 2017

Waku Waku 7

Silhouette Mirage

Comes to mind

FrostuTheNinja · Feb 21, 2017

Breath of Fire 4 has some super hot sprites and animations. Jarring contrast with the 3D models in the game, though.

ienjoyrawfish · Feb 21, 2017

Princess Crown

Astal

X-Men vs Street Fighter

Metal Slug

Alundra

Battle Garegga

Sengoku Blade

Shinrei Jusatsushi Taromaru

Guardian Heores

Breath of Fire 4

Darius Gaiden

Cotton Boomerang

Hyper Duel

Cyberbots Fullmetal Madness

Assault Suit Leynos 2

Blazing Star

Astra Superstars

Armed Police Batrider

Oddworld Abe's Exodus

Rayman

RedZaraki · Feb 21, 2017

^Dayum

PassiveObserver · Feb 21, 2017

I thought Gradius Gaiden looked relatively amazing as a 2D shmup.

Danny Dudekisser · Feb 21, 2017

I just think it's unfortunate that indie devs seem so content to ape the 8-bit style rather than 32-bit. Just lookit some of this shit here. It's just so beautiful.

(Shoutouts to Owlboy and Freedom Planet for keeping the love alive)

epmode · Feb 21, 2017

Chacranajxy said:
I just think it's unfortunate that indie devs seem so content to ape the 8-bit style rather than 32-bit.

It comes down to budgets, really. Good sprite art with lots of animation isn't cheap.

jet1911 · Feb 21, 2017

Is Heart of Darkness considerred sprite based? Because that'd get my vote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6pFcjViB2k

AmyS · Feb 21, 2017

This thread is beautiful to look at.

Strangelove77 · Feb 21, 2017

This is where I hope indie devs get to someday. 32 bit and above 2d sprites are awesome.

Hesh · Feb 21, 2017

Chacranajxy said:
I just think it's unfortunate that indie devs seem so content to ape the 8-bit style rather than 32-bit. Just lookit some of this shit here. It's just so beautiful.

(Shoutouts to Owlboy and Freedom Planet for keeping the love alive)

Valdis Story has some great sprite work, too.

Zophar · Feb 21, 2017

SaGa Frontier 2 had an excellent sprite + watercolor background combo that IMO works better than Legend of Mana's, which came later.

ienjoyrawfish · Feb 21, 2017

Sorry, one more.

Can't believe I forgot Vampire Savior:

Gitaroo · Feb 21, 2017

3d strike, cps3 is from the same era.

JordanN · Feb 21, 2017

Street Fighter 3 solos every game in this thread.

Just look at this and ask "how can they compete?"

Vitacat · Feb 21, 2017

Screens of old 2D games remind me how wrong this type of art looks on modern displays.

Unless you're seeing them on a CRT, or at least with some high quality CRT filters and geometry distortion (i.e. HLSL in MAME), you're not seeing them as they were meant to look and actually experienced in their day.

That's why I'm generally not a fan of modern "pixel art" games that purport to have "8bit" or "16bit" style visuals, but completely neglect proper filters so you end up with jumbles of colored blocks.

@MUWANdo · Feb 21, 2017

Zophar said:
SaGa Frontier 2 had an excellent sprite + watercolor background combo that IMO works better than Legend of Mana's, which came later.

Winner.

soul creator · Feb 21, 2017

was gonna make a sweet Cool Spot joke, but you said 32-bit era

Bruno_Arrais85 · Feb 21, 2017

Slermy · Feb 21, 2017

Vitacat said:
Screens of old 2D games remind me how wrong this type of art looks on modern displays.

Unless you're seeing them on a CRT, or at least with some high quality CRT filters and geometry distortion (i.e. HLSL in MAME), you're not seeing them as they were meant to look and actually experienced in their day.

That's why I'm generally not a fan of modern "pixel art" games that purport to have "8bit" or "16bit" style visuals, but completely neglect proper filters so you end up with jumbles of colored blocks.

I think these aren't necessarily the same. I believe some artists did intend for this art to be crisp, while others did intend for it to be seen on the displays of the era (accounting for NES pixel ratios for circles, adding transparencies through flickering, etc.).

I for one prefer the crisp images. I want to cut my eyes on the pixels.

Shredderi · Feb 21, 2017

JordanN said:
Street Fighter 3 solos every game in this thread.

Just look at this and ask "how can they compete?"

Absolutely insane level of animation.

Weltall Zero · Feb 21, 2017

Zophar said:
SaGa Frontier 2 had an excellent sprite + watercolor background combo that IMO works better than Legend of Mana's, which came later.

This was going to be my contribution, especially because it's relatively obscure.

JordanN said:
Street Fighter 3 solos every game in this thread.

Just look at this and ask "how can they compete?"

It is of course better than most anything in this thread, but it wasn't released in a 32-bit era console (PSX / Saturn / N64).

Mr. Poolman · Feb 21, 2017

Zophar said:
SaGa Frontier 2 had an excellent sprite + watercolor background combo that IMO works better than Legend of Mana's, which came later.

This has to be it.

It looks so beautiful!

mindatlarge · Feb 21, 2017

Always loved the sprite work and animations of the characters in FFT.

fastmower · Feb 21, 2017

Does Garou: Mark of the Wolves count?

UncleSporky · Feb 21, 2017

This thread is really stressin' me out, guys.

Thread about beautiful pixel art...filled with JPGs that ruin the colors and full of artifacts, all kinds of blur, absurd graphical filters!

Look at this gorgeous gorgeous pixel art:

uurrrrrrghh

Shadoken · Feb 21, 2017

JordanN said:
Street Fighter 3 solos every game in this thread.

Just look at this and ask "how can they compete?"

This game was on Dreamcast, not Saturn or PS1.

Calm Mind · Feb 21, 2017

Rayman

JordanN · Feb 21, 2017

Shadoken said:
This game was on Dreamcast, not Saturn or PS1.

It came out in 1997 on the Arcades first.

Vic_Viper · Feb 22, 2017

UnemployedVillain said:
I'm surprised you went with BOF3 and not BOF4

Breath of Fire IV has always been the one I think of when it comes to best Sprite work on PS1. Xenogears is also really good too.

Yatagarasu has some of the best Sprites I've seen recently from a indie dev game on current gen if we're mentioning new games too.

IndieJones · Feb 22, 2017

SOTN is a weird answer because a lot of sprites were from the 16-bit turbo game. It also has like zero parallax.

jman0625 · Feb 22, 2017

How has Xenogears not come up yet???

rackham · Feb 22, 2017

Breath of fire iv deserves a spot more than iii.

Lukemon · Feb 22, 2017

Shadoken said:
This game was on Dreamcast, not Saturn or PS1.

Ah yes, the famously 16-bit Dreamcast.

Era, though.

Third Strike all day long.

sturgboski · Feb 22, 2017

Lukemon said:
Ah yes, the famously 16-bit Dreamcast.

Third Strike all day long.

I thought it was more so since Dreamcast was the generation after. Plus wasn't it "128 bit to N64s 64 bit" or am I remembering marketing wrong?

What The Forest Taught Me · Feb 22, 2017

mindatlarge said:
Always loved the sprite work and animations of the characters in FFT.

"Waaaahhh!!" *Death scream*

Lukemon · Feb 22, 2017

sturgboski said:
I thought it was more so since Dreamcast was the generation after. Plus wasn't it "128 bit to N64s 64 bit" or am I remembering marketing wrong?

Hence the begrudging emoji and subsequent edit. Joking - era-wise, SFIII fits the bill.

ASHES IN THE HOURGLASS · Feb 22, 2017

Zophar said:
SaGa Frontier 2 had an excellent sprite + watercolor background combo that IMO works better than Legend of Mana's, which came later.

Holy shit that's beautiful, is that game any good though?

Slaythe · Feb 22, 2017

UnemployedVillain said:
I'm surprised you went with BOF3 and not BOF4

He triggered me really hard. :/

I love BOF IV's style.

Justinh · Feb 22, 2017

Lukemon said:
Ah yes, the famously 16-bit Dreamcast.

Era, though.

Third Strike all day long.

Oh, if we're doing "era" though, then I guess I'd have to go with an SNK game- Garou Mark of the Wolves.

Even though... I think NeoGeos were 16-bit machines.

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