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I hated PS1 visuals

M

MercuryLS

Banned
Honestly, I never really played many games on this system because I couldn't get over how unbelievably ugly the games looked at the time. The worlds had lots of ploys but the textures were super blocky, shimmery and would constantly jitter as you turned the camera around. N64 had a blurry ass look but at least the textures were smooth and didn't shimmer/jitter constantly.

It's the only Sony system I just couldn't play, early 3D is so f'n bad.
 
Final_Fantasy_7_-_Tous_face_a_Rufus__.jpg


I hated it too
 
Fortunately, unlike N64, there are a respectable number of 2D games (same with Saturn). These are the games that have held up over the years.

There are certain titles which still managed to appear somewhat nice even in 3D, however.

Tobal 2 springs to mind with its higher resolution and use of gourad shaded rather than fully textured characters.

1897430-tobal2_h1.png
 
I can only play PS1 through emulator, either from my pc or my vita. Preferably vita because the games look decent and it's more comfortable to play on a portable. PC if I want them to look as nice as possible, but that's rare when going up against the comfy bed and being able to move the screen effortlessly.
 
I go back and play enough PS1 games to not mind them now, so back then they must have had me in awe. What do I know I was a kid.
 
polyh3dron said:
You actually preferred the blurriness of the N64?

You missed out on some damn good games.
Click to expand...

Yeah I did, I just hated block/shimmery/jittery textures. It was torture for my eyeballs. I remember thinking Id rather play SNES games after looking at the first PS1 titles.

I ended up playing a few of the major PS1 titles on my PS2, so I didn't miss out on much. I hated tank controls and JRPGs, so there was only a handful of titles I had to check out.
 
As an N64 owner, the only games that ever impressed me technically on the PS1 were Wipeout (at its launch) and FF7 2 years later with its FMV transitions. Seeing Mario 64 killed any impact the PS1 could ever have with me. I still regret never owning one tho.
 
I never had a psone, but I'm finally getting around to some of the classics on my Vita and I'm kind of surprised by how good they look (at least RE2,3 and SOTN). Of course it's probably different playing them on a big screen, but I think the visuals hold up pretty well, or at least the art styles are strong enough to shine through the dated graphics.
 
I grew up with ps1 / 64 so to me they were amazing. I still think ff9, metal gear, crash, spyro and a bunch of other games hold up well.

Was playing Monster Rancher 2 the other day.

I always thought ff7 looked bad even when I was a kid.

My mind is clouded from nostalgia.
 
I loved the graphics in Playstation 1 games. Now, after graphics have become so much better on modern console and PCs, I consider a lot of those old games to be quite ugly looking, but when released? I thought FF7 was fantastic to look at, for example.
 
I loved it back then but it's really hard to go back to compared to older consoles.

edit: yeah the Crash Series still looks good.
 
Yes, you were the only one.

...

I can't stand the polygon warping, back then and especially now, but the resolution and lack of texture filtering didn't really bother me at all, in fact I find it kind of appealing.

But the lack of z-buffer kills it in a way screenshots can't do justice.
 
Well, N64 was actually capable of 3D. 3D games on PS1 looked like ass compared to 1st party Nintendo/Rare games. That says nothing about the amazing library of games the PS1 had though. And a lot of it gems had pre rendered backgrounds anyway.
 
It's unfair to hate them because they couldn't make better visuals with the technology they had at the time. Remember that all PS1 games were made technology made available in 1994.
 
i hated them as well, OP. muddy, blocky, couldnt tell what was goling on. and that shimmer you described as well.

some games looked good, notably MGS1 for me, but i preferred n64 almost all of the time.
 
I just asked everyone who ever played a PS1 game. No it appears you weren't the only one. How about that?
 
I never had a PS1, but I think I feel what you're saying. Going from games like Yoshi's Island to Super Mario 64 was so hard. Playing true 3D games was amazing, but they were so god damn ugly. I was eleven when the N64 came out, and even then I had mixed feelings about the console's graphics. It wasn't until the Dreamcast and PS2 that I started to truly appreciate 3D games.
 
Those graphics looked like complete ass back in the day, especially with the constant texture warping, shimmering, and lack of AA. However PS1 games look really good when ran through an emulator with a lot of filtering/gfx options.
 
I did, but late in the PS1's cycle I started to find them kind of endearing. Vagrant Story/Tomb Raider 3/Parasite Eve 2 type era. And of course, anything that hid it beneath great art direction gets a pass, like MGS.
 
I moreso hated the way textures all jittered and teared in every single game. Play a Crash game now, it's like the world is made of pieces tied together with loose string.
 
System was a gorgeous site to behold back when it first released. Ridge Racer blew me away as my first game on the system, and RE and Final Fantasy games only pushed it further. They were definitely helped by pre-rendered backgrounds, but still. I remember when R4 came out and there was this huge emphasis on the tail lights having trails behind them as you would drift around a corner during replays. It really did look awesome back then, lol.
 
Nope. Definitely not. Even during the time of the PS1 I preferred the style/look of (at the time, last gen) games on the Super Nintendo.

It's especially true to this day. SNES games have aged pretty well whereas PS1 games look completely horrible.
 
Back then it all blew my mind. Nowadays, while I think the PS2 era was the threshold of "good enough" I'm okay with older as long as I can fix the image quality or framerate (preferably both); luckily there's usually ways to fix the former at least.
 
Metalic said:
It's unfair to hate them because they couldn't make better visuals with the technology they had at the time. Remember that all PS1 games were made technology made available in 1994.
Click to expand...

That's true, but I wish they'd have waited for texture filtering.
 
when I played syphon filter, it looked realistic to me. Same with metal gear. It looked crisp, clean, and awesome. Fighting games looked fantastic.

Looking at some of them now, yes. But back then, behind the eyes of a 14 year old... they looked amazing.
 
Nope. I owned an N64 and hated the blurriness of most games. While dated today, PS1 looked amazing to me back in the day. BA Toshinden was eye popping.
 
Emulated PSX games look like fucking garbage because of how smooth the blocky models are and the textures end up being filtered, too.

However... PS1 games rendering on the actual hardware are so, so sexy. That blocky, sharp jittery look the 3D had due to the shitty zbuffer was amazing.

mgs-shot.png
 
I owned a N64, and for a while never really saw Playstation games being played for a long time. Any screenshots of PS1 games I saw in gaming magazines looked hideous to me. The lack of aliasing made every still shot look like an indecipherable mess, so I much preferred the lower polygon but cleaner look of N64 games.

It wasn't till I got a PS2 and played PS1 games on it that I really appreciated the visuals the PS1 was putting out. Seeing the games in motion made a big difference.
 
kittens said:
I never had a PS1, but I think I feel what you're saying. Going from games like Yoshi's Island to Super Mario 64 was so hard. Playing true 3D games was amazing, but they were so god damn ugly. I was eleven when the N64 came out, and even then I had mixed feelings about the console's graphics. It wasn't until the Dreamcast and PS2 that I started to truly appreciate 3D games.
Click to expand...

N64 graphics were almost good, you could tell they tried really hard to make the visuals smooth. The blurriness and framerates really hampered the visuals though. DC was the first 3D system where I was like "finally 3D games look good".
 
Obviously not the only one (seriously, why so many threads recently asking if they're the only one?). However, they looked great at the time, and I'll admit I have a fondness for the type of visuals it produced.

Neuromancer said:
Silent Hill 1 was amazing because of, not in spite of, the system's low fi visuals.



The shit you don't see, or can only barely make out, is what makes the best horror games scary.
Click to expand...

This always comes to my mind when PS1 visuals are mentioned. It did look great for a PS1 title, but it also has a mastery to it so that everything is detailed enough for you to tell what it is, but undetailed enough to let you imagination fill in the blanks of what you're looking at.

It'd be hard to sell something with graphics like these in this day and age, but I kind of wish more indie horror efforts strived to go for maybe graphic styles like this.
 
I can go back and play everything from the 2600 on up, until I hit the psx/n64/saturn era, then I just have to jump over that whole blurry/framey/janky mess of an era then pick back up from Dreamcast on up
 
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