Is this the peak of JRPG in terms of 2D spritework ?
>>3553282God BoF4 looks so fucking good compared to all the HD-2D bullshits.
>>3553282God I hate artists
>>3553282falcom's pc rpgs from 1991-2002 are also beautiful as hell, even if not as traditional looking with their sprites and color palettes
>>3553287>God BoF4 looks so fucking good compared to all the HD-2D bullshits.Natsume is really good at HD remakes. They actually redraw and re-animate everything and improve it visually.
>>3553282yesalso that one jeyarpeegee with watercolor backgrounds and diablo 1+2t. a warpig
>>3553343Saga Frontier 2 doesn't actually look that good in motion. The spritework is very rigid.
>No lineart>Bland colors>Uninspired character designCorporate slop. From a game with NTR nonetheless.
>>3553287In a way BOF4 IS HD-2D or 2.5D as it was known then. 2D Sprites over 3D backgrounds. Its just these days they're dogshit because they try to make it as pixelly as possible on purpose because they think its AESTHETIC. There's too much disonance between the sprite and the 3D background. I think my issue with modern HD-2D is that they gotta lenseflare everything for some reason. Pic related because it was the peak of Pokemon aesthetically. They knew how to blend the sprite with the 3D backgrounds well.
>>3553287Capcom was the behemoth of graphics iback in 2000
>>3553428Yeah, and if anything the sprites kind of clash with the watercolor BG work.I remember at the time thinking I had really overpaid for something that looks like an art game I had downloaded from Madmonkey.net
>>3553488>DQ VII, IV-V-VI remakes>DS Pokemon>DS Metal MaxI love this style and hope it comes back, maybe Squeenix will fix HD-2D after some flops
>>3553488eh....Pokemon was always behind. Don't put that trash on a pedestal, the Second Mystery Dungeon looks much better than any main series game. And here's the kicker, everything is animated. >>3553282I would honestly say that or Legend of Mana's environments and boss monsters. The standard characters were only a bit above average.>>3553622you are in luckhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBmavOoAx5o
>>3553650
>>3553622Yeah again my biggest issues with HD2D is the amount of lensflare and the obviousness of the character sprites just blatantly not matching the background. Games like BOF4, Pokemon Black and White, DS Dragon Quests knew how to seamlessly blend the 2D Sprites with the 3D backgrounds. I just dunno what that style is called. Good HD2D? Does it count as HD2D or its own style? No idea.
>>3554186The biggest problem with that so-called HD2D shit is the use of shaders to obfuscate pixelart. You don't need bloom and DoF and lensflares and vaseline filters.
>>3554186It's overuse of post process effects that ruins it. Especially ones that makes no sense to have like depth of field.Live A Live didn't go as crazy with it as Octopath.
>>3554204This is ok, but it still feels like a waste of resources.SE said HD-2D games aren't as cheap to produce as many believe, and if that's the case, why don't they go with low budget 3D like Trials of Mana?It looks better than those awkward low res sprites thrown into a 3D environment with no sense of harmony.
>>3553293t. AI-pajeet
>>3554190It countermands their whole "embrance the pixel" mentality when they try to hide it as much as possible. At least the Final Fantasy pixel remasters did embrace the pixel side of it, even though I preferred the monster sprites from the PSP remakes.
>>3554204See even to me, those trees are kinda jarring. I think its the perspective I dislike too, I just prefer top down.>>3554279Or just do high quality pixel sprites.
>>3553428Battle sprites are nothing special but the map sections are all very good, map sprites don't reach the amount of flair and expressiveness BoF4's sprites have but Capcom was the undisputed king of 2D back then and also at its peak, so it was unrealistic for a small, underpaid and understaffed team at Square to even get to those levels, especially when they were working on two games at the same time.They had something real good going with Unlimited just two years later but again, no budget, tiny staff and the usual problems can only get you so far, that franchise's entire history is like that, amazing games having their full potential crippled by lack of money and malicious suits.What sets BoF4 aside from its peers isn't (just) the high quality spritework though, it's managing to seamlessly blend said high quality sprite art with 3D backgrounds through a smart art design process that accounted for shrewd 2D texturing at fixed angles and a superb attention to details in both chromatic choices and shading techniques, something nobody else replicated outside of maybe what the Tales of Destiny team did with the Tales of Destiny remake for PS2.
>>3554346That town proves that 3D is awful for city exploration. Rotating cameras isn't fun. Reminds me of chapter 4 in WotR and how shit that was.
>>3554279HD 2D is cheaper than 3D for these types of remakes. These HD remakes use a lot of 3D and lower res textures and so long as you don't need to draw and animate a ton of character sprites and such it's much cheaper than needing a large crew of riggers, animators and character artists to make all 3D characters. Not to mention large 3D environments, potential lip sync and cutscenes.
>>3554309>I think its the perspective I dislike too, I just prefer top down.This is my main gripe with "HD-2D" garbage. You see FAR LESS than in the original >>3554204 How the fuck is this supposed to be playable? Who likes this?
What sucks the most about HD2D stuff is that with the technology today you could do some amazing spritework, to the point it almost looks like genuiney animation. Imagine BOF4 today but no HD2D shit, just with even better quality. That should be how it goes. Spritework could be so fluid and detailed now but instead they're going for ultra pixelated sprites for "nostalgia" and because they can get away with shitty sprite work by saying shit like "ITS A NES THROWBACK, ITS MEANT TO LOOK RETRO"
Mentally ill shitenix nostalgiafaggot strikes again
>>3554420You can run into the issue of having too many details taking you out of the experience. I don't know how to articulate this but whenever you decide to make one thing detailed you also have to make it fit with its surroundings. With lower graphics you can get away with something like people standing lifelessly without breathing because your mind fills the gaps with your imagination but when you add overly fluid movements, it starts to look uncanny and off.
>>3554420Actual high quality spritework, with fluid animations, is incredibly time consuming and costly.Even if Vanillaware fully disclosed their own tech and pipeline to create such a thing it wouldn't be financially sustainable, also because despite everything, most people still consider 2D spritework as lazy, it's just too risky to go all in on such a project, which is why a lot of graphic designers nowadays are experimenting with shaders and other rendering tricks, see something like Metal Bringer.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHexs-1VC-g
>>3554420Spritework quickly becomes unviable if the sprites become too big and need to be animated.Not even Vanillaware does that. They use 2D rigging and sometimes 3D.
>>3554457>I don't know how to articulate thisSuikoden.There's another sprite game that has these tall sprites that look uncanny too. I forget its name but it was PS1 era.
>>3554497Yeah theres still that weird menality amongst casuals that "2D = bad graphics" even a horribly rendered 3D is better to them than a pretty 2D.
>>3554497>Even if Vanillaware fully disclosed their own tech and pipeline to create such a thing it wouldn't be financially sustainableIt's nothing special. They draw backgrounds and character, sometimes with assisted 3D. They then rig parts of their character with 2D pieces (arms, legs, etc) and deform them as required. You can even do this in Unity and various other software.It's just that they're a team that's slighty larger than most other studios using such tech (mostly small indie) and Vanillaware has had the time to grow a talented team of artists.
>>3554530>Yeah theres still that weird menality amongst casuals that "2D = bad graphics" even a horribly rendered 3D is better to them than a pretty 2D.That's mostly the idea of investors and suits. It's why they keep chasing higher and higher fidelity which balloons dev costs for no real benefit.
>>3554534I wonder if AI will take it over.
>>3554497>vanillaware>high quality spriteworkwhy do faggots insist on calling the most generic corporate style to ever exist the most unique thing ever?
>>3554614lol no chance. AI blows balls. Artists would need to spend more time fixing all the mistakes and ugly stuff the AI would made than if they just did it all themselves. You would need dedicated QA people just to look over all the stuff the AI made.If you're not just making a static image, then AI won't work. Even then the results you get are subpar if we're generous.
>>3554621>why do faggots insist on calling the most generic corporate style to ever exist the most unique thing ever?What in the everloving fuck are you talking about. Please provide 10 different examples if it's so generic corpo as you claim.
I think that late PS1 era 1999 - 2001 is my favorite JRPG era aesthetically. When the PS1 first came out, the fact that it was a 3D console was like a big gimmick at the time and every company felt the need to go 3D. It lead to some weird looking blocky 3D games like Legend of Legaia and FF7 as they tried to navigate how to do 3D after years of doing sprites. Then they realized "Oh wait, thanks to the PS1 being a major upgrade in hardware, we can do some really good quality sprites" and they all went back to 2D and we got some great looking games.
>>3554186I don't like hd2d because it uses post processing effects like Depth of field, color-grading, and lens flare. those post processing effects aren't pixelated
>>3554381Sounds like there's something wrong with your eyesight, anon. Maybe you should see an optometrist?
>>3554420>he expects developers to prioritize artistic integrity and ambition over convenienceAt this point, you're the idiot.
>>3554420>they can get away with shitty sprite work by saying shit like "ITS A NES THROWBACK, ITS MEANT TO LOOK RETRO"I don't think the spritework itself in Octopath was "shitty" at all. The enemy sprites and bosses were particularly excellent. If they had made the exact same game with better/more complex graphics, then it would have cost too much and Square problably wouldn't have even bothered making it because turn-based JRPGs simply aren't where the market is going.Personally, the only thing that riled me about the graphics in Octopath were the lack of animations. I'm playing FF5 right now, and for a game from 1992, there are TONS of sprite animations and emotes to go along with dialogue and it gives the game a lot of character. Conversely, the only things I can remember seeing Octopath characters doing while reading dialogue is nod or gesture with one hand. Very boring.
>>3556539And are the worst things about it. Without it it'd look much better
>>3556911Oh yeah for that I wasn't really thinking of Octopath more the various indie shlock thrown out these days where they're like "Its a NES/SNES throwback game because uhhhh low quality sprites!"
>>3556911>turn-based JRPGs simply aren't where the market is goingwhere is the market going?
>>3553622I love that style too. I always see people saying the DQ VII and the DS DQ remakes are ugly, but I find them so charming. They will always be my favorite versions. The DS Metal Max games also looked absolutely amazing.
>>3554534You have no goddamn idea and you're so unbelievably wrong about how costly and time-consuming it is.
It's indeed peak spritework and 2.5D graphics, no discussion. This is now a Breath of Fire IV apreciation thread.
>>3553282Been playing a lot of BOF4 lately and love this autism dog like you wouldn't believe.
>>3557906Maybe you should actually read and understand what people are saying before typing something that has no relation to what anyone said.
>>3558002Source?
>>3554497This really.It's the same reason we don't get hand drawn movies anymore, even though they look way better.They're way more expensive to make, and they're only getting harder to do the longer we go training people only in the new methods while the number of people who even know how to do the old method well dwindle.
>>3558002SAUCE
Crazy how FF6 spritework still trumps Octopath despite the 2 decade gap. No amount of bloom and filters will ever cover the soulless sprites and expressionless sprites.
>>3559206>FF6 I beg to differ.The FF games for SNES were kind of unremarkable in that aspect, there's a bunch of grade B RPGs that did a better job than FF6.Compare it with something like Chrono Trigger that actually had quality sprites.
>>3559206Sprites of Octopath isn't the problem. They are better animated, have more animations and are more detailed.FF6 uses a more anime and over the top way of expressing emotions (like when they're surprised), but that's it.The biggest problems with the Octopath games is the writing being subpar and characters feelings so disconnected.
>>3559279>characters feelings so disconnected.They should've committed to actually separate scenarios like Live A Live did it.
>>3559292No, the "point" of Octopath is technically to have a more freeform party creation and having these random strangers start travelling together. Live A Live is completely different, an anthology separated by time and with the intent of creating several different "rpgs" and stories within a single game (i.e. kind of like a 10-games-in-1 thing).All they need to do is to add some lines, interjections and such where it makes sense and depending on who you have with you.Many games do it, even Eiyuden Chronicles which has like 100 characters.Next step would obviously be to write it more systemically.
>>3559279Nah Octopath SHOULD've been more animated. Characters are pretty expressionless even during cutscenes, yet there is no excuse of resource limitations.FF6 during cutscenes is very animated despite the clear lack of resources.Even during battle there is no excuse for lack of different skill animations
>>3559240Yeah the effort put in Chrono is pretty evident. There is a tradeoff due to FF6 prioritizing more content I guess.
>>3559500What you want are more emotive sprites, not animation, since FF6 is very poorly animated (static sprites) and doesn't actually have a lot of sprites/emotions.
>>3559512animated doesn't just mean animation. yeah, english is weird.
>>3559519In the context of sprites it does. If you're calling spritework well animated or better animated, no one would think of how a single sprite is drawn, but how several of them result in animation.When you say>SHOULD've been more animatedit literally means more frames of animation and/or less subtle frame variation.What you want is more exagerrated expressions.
>>3559529animated can mean lively, which means more expressive. not sure he was using it that way, but that's english.
>>3559542Context matters. An "animated" person does not mean the same thing when talking about "animated" sprites.
>>3559560sprites embody a character, animated applies in the context of the anon talking about seeing characters as expressionless.
>>3559565Why are you being intentionally obtuse? It the context of sprites and animation, saying "SHOULD've been more animated" says they lack animation frames or similar. You would've used expression or emotive instead.You don't go up to an animator and say "it needs to be more animated" unless you actively want them to be confused or not do what you want them to.
>>3559572you aren't talking with professional game developers, anon. are you so obtuse that you can't infer meaning from layman discussion? maybe you shouldn't post here.
>>3559512I don't like being too detailed, but honestly overall Octopath should have more different animations, not just in emotions but also in battle. Enemy sprites as well. So yea, I guess
>>3559512FF6's problem in terms of expressiveness is that the character sprites have very little personality in terms of design and are very standardized, the animation direction is also very static and with little flair so they don't really stand out because they're mostly standing there, raising their arms and taking a few steps forward and back, there's only so much you can do with that.If they wanted to make them more interesting they surely could, after all Kazuko Shibuya did go on to make RS3's spritework just one year later, which is a wilder and much more expressive precisely because they focused on giving every character more flamboyant and unique poses on top of all the wuxia looking shit anyone can do, which is why RS3 style spritesheets in particular became so iconic, they're not simply functional and efficient but also a very good format for clever animation tricks and making expressive characters with very few frames.
>>3559576>you aren't talking with professional game developersWe're literally talking about sprites, how they're animated, etc. This is common sense level as the animator example I just gave hammers home. You going out of your way of defending a usage of a very poor choice of word is immature. Accept you fucked up, learn from it and move on.>>3559581I think they fall victim of being too efficient and 'serious'.They don't want the game to visually look too goofy, so they don't do overly expressive animations.They also want to be efficent (cost/time cutting) so they lean heavily into re-using a lot from the base poses (like entire heads, most of the static body and only moving the arm, etc).So while the characters can have a lot of different poses, emotions or actions they can easily feel like they bleed together because the changes aren't distinct enough from the norm.>>3559593FF6 sprites are also very small in terms of pixel count and obviously suffered from cartridge memory limitations (can't have a lot of different sprites, since a ton of it was eaten up by backgrounds, characters, big monster sprites, etc) so they couldn't have tons of sprites per character.
>>3559625>We're literally talking about sprites, how they're animated, etc. This is common sense level as the animator example I just gave hammers home. they were talking about expressiveness in sprites>You going out of your way of defending a usage of a very poor choice of word is immature. Accept you fucked up, learn from it and move on.i'm not the one who wrote that, i just instantly understood their meaning. :)
>>3559625looks awfully washed out and dull
>>3558002OOooouughghghhgh scias....
>>3559776>they were talking about expressiveness in spritesYou really want to die on this hill where using "animated" in the context of people talking about animated sprites wasn't a poor choice of words? Ok.>i'm not the one who wrote that, i just instantly understood their meaning. :)Seems like you're not very literate, since I literally explained what the poster was talking about, before they reiterated what I said except worded ignorantly and poorly.Like why are you idiots still going on about this post after post? A mature person would just say "my bad", consider it for next time and move on. Whatever, expecting maturity in reason on this board is a lost cause. Keep shitposting about this on your own then.
So BOF4 is in fact peak 2D spritework.
>>3559941I believe it's just the fact that we've seen what sprites have to offer already. Overabundance of RPG Maker slop on top of the classics. I would be very surprised to see a pixel art game that has striking visuals.
>>3560586>You really want to die on this hill where using "animated" in the context of people talking about animated sprites wasn't a poor choice of words? Ok.i don't think i'll die. :) i immediately knew what they meant. i'm also not autistic, so maybe it's unfair to pick on you for this.>Whatever, expecting maturity in reason on this board is a lost causeonly children care about maturity.
>>3561148You really should do a better job at attentionwhoring and shitposting if you want more replies and attention after this, since it's clear you're not interested in discussion and only desperately seek attention. Just a tip for the future.
>>3561189i don't like attention actually. when i was a kid i cried at my birthday party when everyone sang to me. :(i do love banter though.
>>3554348>rotating cameras isn't funThat's a pretty ridiculous thing to nitpick at, IMO. Being able to view the terrain from different perspectives (SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO DO SO) is a perfectly acceptable form of camera control.
>>3554621>/vrpg/ poster has absolutely no taste and his takes read like drunken criticism even though he's been sober for his entire lifeSasuga
>>3553443>NTRit's a mistranslation. cray is actually deep in the friendzone.
>>3553443(You)
>>3554204>octopath Worth noting you can turn all of those off in the config.ini and make the games look 100x better
>>3563009>SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO DO SOI was p. specific with what games I was talking about, anon.
