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[Jazzkokehead]

I really like the low-poly, low-res texture look, but I can agree that the low resolution and framerates of older games as aspects better left behind.

Still, I find it hard to respect people who take a hardline stance that games should "never" return to older graphical styles such as this - if we can have 8/16-bit throwback platformers, then certainly a game which emulates the look of early 3D is just as valid, even if it isn't to your particular taste. If anything, I'm pleased to see that the independent gaming scene has room for something like this, niche though its appeal may be.

Adding texture filtering and antialiasing destroys a large part of the "PS1 retro" look, though. A big chunk of reason N64 and PS1 games looked as crappy as they did was because they had terrible IQ and low rendering resolution.

I strongly disagree. With higher resolutions and antialiasing, a lot of older 3D games still maintain a good deal of appeal, both visually and gameplay-wise. Call it a compromise - models and textures from the mid-90s with the image quality of 2015.

 

[Tybolt]

All this hyperbole; this thread's going to need a trigger warning.

I'm in the crowd that's sick of the 16-or-less bit pandering, even moreso since this isn't a procedurally-generated roguelike, and I didn't know I wanted this until I saw it.

 

[How About No]

Lol this looks rougher than Overblood, and that game was hella rough

 

[televator]

I think it looks worse than a typical PS1 game...

 

[Tain]

I do think that assets of that level look best at lower resolutions, generally. Not necessarily lower framerates. Games like Mario 64 and Mega Man Legends, which are generally considered to be some of the more high-resolution friendly games from that generation, still look worse to me at 1080p or 1440p than they do at 240p or even 480i/p.

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

What might work best for me: models with low polygon counts situated in pre-rendered backgrounds, everything running in in resolutions higher than what the PlayStation or Saturn could achieve back then, but texture warping's all chaotic and out of control. The spider-webbing and instability of visuals from that era can still be used to effect without going overboard, instead focusing on this element that most resembles horror. Couple this with better lighting and I'd be interested, but right now Back in 1995's maker is just rationalizing.

 

[Lijik]

I followed the dev on twitter and today they've retweeted stuff about a unity shader called Retro3D, which im taking to mean texture warping will be in Back in 1995

 

[gelf]

I'm all for throwbacks to that era but I think that looks more basic then every polygon Saturn or PS1 game I ever played. I would certainly at least up the resolution. Resident Evil was 96 and looks vastly more advanced.

 

[LaserHawk]

hmmm.... I just don't have the same nostalgia for those kind of graphics that I did for 8-bit and 16-bit graphics. It lacks charm.

 

[Clawww]

this is actually pretty cool

 

[CrashPrime]

Some things should be left in the past. VHS, 8 Track, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and this style of graphics. That being said I can't fault a guy for following through with his passion. I can understand to a point. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around trying to appreciate something that looks soo bad. SO bad.

All I'm saying is, no one is going to buy a Pontiac Aztek for nostalgia sake. (But, Breaking Bad fanatics might?)

Best of luck to the dev.

I hope there is a supporting fanbase for him. Surely he can't be alone.

 

[Orayn]

I followed the dev on twitter and today they've retweeted stuff about a unity shader called Retro3D, which im taking to mean texture warping will be in Back in 1995

I love nearest neighbor texture filtering and low-poly assets, but jittering polygon edges will always look incredibly gross to me.

 

[pinkurocket]

There's a lot of charm in the low-poly aliased look. In fact, I love low-poly 3D models, there's a nice aesthetic to them if done well. However he shouldn't go too far to recreate that PS1 look by even bringing back the texture warping. :I

Still I'll keep an eye on this, looks intriguing.

 

[KKRT00]

Low res, no AA, streaming issues, why?!
Nothing wrong with Alone in The Dark 1 like aesthetics, but why would You want to do that in PSX era IQ?

 

[eXistor]

Lo-fi games can really be scary like nothing else when done right.

 

[Damerman]

they should really just try to go for the superficial aesthetic... animation and frame rate should stay modern though.

 

[Dascu]

Heh, this is something I wanted to do.

 

[Candescence]

Okay, low-poly stuff is valid, but this is excessive. I'm pretty sure few PSX/Saturn/N64 games looked as bad as this did. Some things from that era should damn well stay in that era. Especially the PSX polygon jittering, ugh.

 

[TheSpaceBetween]

Lo-fi games can really be scary like nothing else when done right.

Honestly I find them much scarier than the modern horror games we get these days.

 

[taybul]

In fact, it looks more on par with Alone in the Dark, from 1992.

Aw this right here was my jam. This was my survival horror fix around the time all my more privileged friends were playing Resident Evil.

 

[Teknoman]

8-bit/16-bit aren't some sacred cut off point for throwbacks. The whole pixel revival created a mound of trash with a few clear winners and now it's pretty damn overdone, just like every other era of gaming. Bring on the low poly games!

Im fine with this. Low poly games with a Shovel Knight or Axiom Verge level of quality put into them would be great.

 

[xrayregime]

This makes me think a low-poly retro game is possible, but needs a lot of work to edge out that roughness. I liked the video but the walking animation kinda reminded me of this:

 

[Cleve]

I grew up in the 8/16 bit era, and I just never had a love for early 3d. I thought star fox looked like shit and was really dissatisfied with visuals in the psx/saturn/n64 era. A lot of my playtime wound up being in 2d games on the saturn as a result.

With a couple exceptions, the first 3d games that really blew me away were on dreamcast. (or unreal 1 on a voodoo 2)

I get that everyone has their own point of entry and nostalgic sense that doesn't appeal to others, I'll just never see the draw for awful popping textures that look like smeared mud and draw distances that extend 10 feet before the fog creeps in.

Still, I'll be interested to see if this takes off and if anything interesting comes out of it.

 

[Teknoman]

I still like how Die Hard Arcade looks. If they get a really great scene setting soundtrack and sound effects, they should be on track.

 

[Backfoggen]

This is a nice idea but what we've seen so far doesn't speak for a great execution.

 

[John Rabbit]

Pig Farmer Games has been doing hits specific thing for awhile now (low-poly horror games) but it's cool to see new attempts at the idea. personally i love this.

 

[Teknoman]

I think low poly today would work better for more... esoteric(?) horror settings. Not general slasher flick type games. Stuff thats just weird and strange on a Silent Hill or Galerians level.

 

[Lijik]

I think low poly today would work better for more... esoteric(?) horror settings. Not general slasher flick type games. Stuff thats just weird and strange on a Silent Hill or Galerians level.

someone made a yume nikki fangame in the duke 3d engine that i like a lot

im not sure if yume nikki really counts as "horror" but i thought the low poly reinterpretation helped add to the surreal atmosphere

 

[MrCunningham]

I love nearest neighbor texture filtering and low-poly assets, but jittering polygon edges will always look incredibly gross to me.

That's kind of cool. Though I dread to see what an N64 retro styled shader looks like.

Okay, low-poly stuff is valid, but this is excessive. I'm pretty sure few PSX/Saturn/N64 games looked as bad as this did. .

I would definitely say that there were early PS1 and Saturn games that looked comparable. Though on a whole, Saturn games arguably did look worse than their PS1 counterparts because the Saturn rendered polygons differently (though I do like the Chris model more on the Saturn, despite the derp face) and lacked all sorts of things that the PS1 could do through hardware.

The Saturn rendering everything in quads did make the models look different. Plus it lacked things like gouraud shading, which is really evident on the two above comparisons. The Saturn couldn't really use transparencies either, though some developers did find workarounds for this.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

I hope he makes a PAL version.

 

[CaviarMeths]

Mid-90s was a horribly ugly time that I'm not really keen on revisiting, but I guess this is a stepping stone.

 

[AwShucks]

I actually really like PS1 graphics. This is great.

 

[outunderthestars]

No interest whatsoever in going back to those horrible graphics.

 

[PHOENIXZERO]

I guess it fits 1995 which would be before the advancements on working with the PS1's hardware came about...

 

[gelf]

That's kind of cool. Though I dread to see what an N64 retro styled shader looks like.




I would definitely say that there were early PS1 and Saturn games that looked comparable. Though on a whole, Saturn games arguably did look worse than their PS1 counterparts because the Saturn rendered polygons differently (though I do like the Chris model more on the Saturn, despite the derp face) and lacked all sorts of things that the PS1 could do through hardware.

The Saturn rendering everything in quads did make the models look different. Plus it lacked things like gouraud shading, which is really evident on the two above comparisons. The Saturn couldn't really use transparencies either, though some developers did find workarounds for this.

I would say both those games still look a lot better then this game looks even on the Saturn.

 

[RoadHazard]

I don't have anything against a low-poly look if done well, but this honestly just looks bad to me. PS1 games generally haven't aged well, and this unnecessarily brings back many of the ugly flaws of those early 3D graphics on purpose.

 

[jett]

I followed the dev on twitter and today they've retweeted stuff about a unity shader called Retro3D, which im taking to mean texture warping will be in Back in 1995

Actually wanting texture warping and jittering polygons is idiotic.

 

[Unai]

The only thing I could think was: Ew.

Early 3D sucks. I'm ok with barebones textures and low poly, but it needs high resolutions and framerate.

 

[Persona7]

I'll try it. The aesthetic is OK but I like horror games so...

 

[KojiKnight]

I can barely play 3D games I'm nostalgic for from that era (FF8), there is just no way I could stomach a 'modern' game made this way...

Take a cue from pixel art games today... Very few have intentionally limited themselves to strictly what the console they were pretending to be could do (Shovel Knight added scrolling backgrounds and wide screen support, Cave Story didn't rely on only having a certain amount of colors on screen, etc etc)... Want to go low poly? Sure, fine, but drop the low resolution and low framerate or at least give the option to improve on it.

 

[Accoun]

Actually wanting texture warping and jittering polygons is idiotic.

I wouldn't say i want it, but it looks like a cool option.

 

[Phreakuency]

It's pretty apparent who was born when based on the comments in this thread. I've been anticipating more games that look like this for years.

To people who think this game's style looks unplayable and bad, there is a whole generation of gamers who feels the same way about 8-Bit.

I was born in the 70's and this looks hideous.

 

[fengshuifever]

I had a brief look and I'm pretty sure it wasn't mentioned but-

I'm getting a real Mizzurna Falls vibe from what's been shown so I am one hundred percent on board for this.

Edit: Nm, I'm utterly blind. Visualante beat me by what seems to be millennia

 

[TedHub]

On mobile so I can't watch the video, but I'm excited to see how the aesthetics work with the horror aspects of the game. Good shit.

 

[Celine]

I followed the dev on twitter and today they've retweeted stuff about a unity shader called Retro3D, which im taking to mean texture warping will be in Back in 1995

The horror!

 

[LestradeTGQ]

Thanks for posting about this, GAF! I am very interested in this, obviously.

I reached out to its creator, Taakaki Ichijo, on Twitter. Looks like he's a presenter at the Tokyo Indie Fest, which is happening now [EDIT: I meant this Friday, because I am stupid]: http://tokyoindiefest.com/indexglobal.html

He said he'll update the site more after the show. I am totally down with PS1/Saturn-style games, so this is tickling a very welcome fancy.

 

[Celine]

I would say both those games still look a lot better then this game looks even on the Saturn.

RE1 yes but only because it uses 2D backgrounds, TR1 not so much.

 

[M3d10n]

I have been thinking about making a game with PS1-styled graphics. The problem with this particular game is that the art sucks big time.

Anyway, all this bitching about the graphics reminds me of when 8-bit styled indie games started popping up. We had lots upon lots of posts complaining about it, saying that it was insane to make games which such graphics in platforms that could support rich HD hand painted graphics with fluid animations. That it was unforgivable that 2 or 3 man indie teams were making games that didn't hold up graphically to games like Muramasa and Odin Sphere, ignoring how much it would cost.

I believe PS1-like graphics are as justifiable as 8-bit graphics for indie games. What alternative do you propose for really small or one man teams who want to make 3D games with human characters walking around reality-based environments? Emulating graphics from another era allows developers to put an intentional cap on how detailed their models and textures need to be in a consistent way.

Now, Back to 1995 might not be the best example, but it's a start. I hope we get more experiments with constrained 3D so it can evolve and be refined as much as constrained 2D was.

 

[Mman235]

I'm in two minds about this. I want to see early 3D explored with some of the worst limitations removed... Which is where the problem here is, as it seems to be entirely embracing those things to the point the current footage looks worse than many games from that time (though this might just be a mock-up and the actual game will be more like Silent Hill 1 etc). On the other hand the designer has gone so all-in on imitating that era that I can kind of respect that vision, and that still leaves me interested in the game in the end. Maybe I'll change my view after it makes more progress.

 

[Celine]

Anyway, all this bitching about the graphics reminds me of when 8-bit styled indie games started popping up. We had lots upon lots of posts complaining about it, saying that it was insane to make games which such graphics in platforms that could support rich HD hand painted graphics with fluid animations. That it was unforgivable that 2 or 3 man indie teams were making games that didn't hold up graphically to games like Muramasa and Odin Sphere, ignoring how much it would cost.

The 8-bit retro movement was inspired by NES graphics constraints but in most cases don't follow them rigidly like this game is trying to do.
Textures warping and polygons jittering are absolutely unnatural no matter what art-style you use.