Older Fighting Games Having Better Looking Levels?

[vaillian]

We all know Garou Mark of the Wolfs, Street Fighter Third Strike etc. are untouchable when it comes to animations.

But do you also feel both of these highly rated games and games after 1995/6 really had boring and lifeless backgrounds?


(1995) Here is Galaxy Fight using all the power of the Neo Geo, making the entire level reflectable and using parallel scrolling for every pillar sprites.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3R5UdzTATc#t=1m12s


(1995) Fatal Fury 3 has a beautiful moving and scrolling background. The boat is flouding up and down, bird sprites are flying in all direction. You can also kick the opponent into the water or out of the screen in FT3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz0XOnSXZZo#t=9m30s

notice also how both games have objects at the front of the screen which are part of the background.

What happened with all the detail and ideas which utilized the hardware after 1996?

 

[DracoBlade]

What happened with all the detail and ideas which utilized the hardware after 1996?

Playstation.


No but really the focus on 3d software for third party developers like sunsoft may have made innovating on perceived stale hardware a moot point? But ofc if we are talking SNK/ADK stuff post 96, KOF 97 has the best stages in the series easily producing some hardware stressing tech. But a year after 96 might be cheating in this convo. I'll keep thinking of games ;/

 

[oliverclaude]

(1995) Here is Galaxy Fight using all the power of the Neo Geo, making the entire level reflectable and using parallel scrolling for every pillar sprites.

More technical gimmics doesn't make it better looking. It's the question of concept & visual composition, which, among other things, means perspective, color and most important: proportions of sizes, light and shadow. Hence, there are plenty arguments to counter your assumption (in chronological order): The Last Blade, The Last Blade 2 (featuring one of the most acclaimed back ground graphics of all time: The Large Fire at Wadamoya Stage), The King of Fighters '99, Mark of the Wolves, The King of Fighters 2k & Power Instinct Matrimelee.

All those games fulfill my afore-mentioned requirements for a great looking BG. So, what happened with all the detail and ideas which utilized the hardware after 1996? They evolved, you just did not catch it.

 

[lolifoxgirl]

There might be some merit to this. In terms of style some of the earlier snk games like samsho 2 impress me more than the later ones.

 

[oliverclaude]

There might be some merit to this. In terms of style some of the earlier snk games like samsho 2 impress me more than the later ones.

They are great (KoF '95 Iori stage), but objectively and taken as a whole later ones aren't worse in my opinion.

 

[munchiaz]

There are some great BG after 1995 fighters. But if you look at most current fighters, there seems to be a lack of that extra touch. Specially when it comes to Capcom games. Its great that fighters are back in the forefront, but its a shame that the extra touches are missing. Like the character intros from Alpha 3, and CVS 2. Most street fighter stages are boring.

 

[vaillian]

More technical gimmics doesn't make it better looking. It's the question of concept & visual composition, which, among other things, means perspective, color and most important: proportions of sizes, light and shadow. Hence, there are plenty arguments to counter your assumption (in chronological order): The Last Blade, The Last Blade 2 (featuring one of the most acclaimed back ground graphics of all time: The Large Fire at Wadamoya Stage), The King of Fighters '99, Mark of the Wolves, The King of Fighters 2k & Power Instinct Matrimelee.

All those games fulfill my afore-mentioned requirements for a great looking BG. So, what happened with all the detail and ideas which utilized the hardware after 1996? They evolved, you just did not catch it.

so you mean evolved by having no scaling effects, foreground object or parallel scrolling at all? The Last Blade 2s fire stage is like one expectation of the entire game which consists of mostly lifeless and silent backgrounds, tough in fairness this is what SNK wanted for this particular series.

I much rather have these fancy gimmicks as all Neo Geo games look dated now days, imo Galaxy Fight has aged a lot better than the likes you have mentioned dueto this extra swag of it

 

[oliverclaude]

so you mean evolved by having no scaling effects, foreground object or parallel scrolling at all?

Yes, all technical gimmicks are just an excuse for the lack of concept, structure & the illusion of depth. They instantly dominate a background, unbalance its composition and are almost instantly outdated due to their bond with technological progress. A stringent composition, focused around traditional rules of image buildup and expression is timeless.

A good piece of art should inhabit a lot of artistic quality that should't be seen. It's the same with technology. If you do see it, the object's broken and apparently, you've seen a-lot in your examples.

 

[city41]

I'd say Hon Fu's stage is a more impressive example for FF3.

To be the line is at SNK versus SNKP. SNK cared a lot more about their games than SNKP ever did.

 

[vaillian]

I'd say Hon Fu's stage is a more impressive example for FF3.

To be the line is at SNK versus SNKP. SNK cared a lot more about their games than SNKP ever did.

yeah that was another example how to utilize the hardware

Yes, all technical gimmicks are just an excuse for the lack of concept, structure & the illusion of depth. They instantly dominate a background, unbalance its composition and are almost instantly outdated due to their bond with technological progress. A stringent composition, focused around traditional rules of image buildup and expression is timeless.

A good piece of art should inhabit a lot of artistic quality that should't be seen. It's the same with technology. If you do see it, the object's broken and apparently, you've seen a-lot in your examples.

well thats your opinion but beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder in the end of the day.

And i am not saying that Galaxy Fight looks better than Street Fighter 3 just that i look at it differently than i would have 10 years ago.

 

[xsq]

beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder

a common misconception. It is very possible (and necessary) to (objectively) argue about aesthetics, if criteria/standards/scales are used. I believe oliver formulated those very well. If you disagree, you should reason against his conclusions or outright debate the standarts he used as a baseline.

 

[oliverclaude]

And i am not saying that Galaxy Fight looks better than Street Fighter 3 just that i look at it differently than i would have 10 years ago.

I never said, you were. I merely stated some examples that using the hardware is not bound to use its technical gimmicks. But if you think that the Amon stage in Double Dragon is aesthetically superior to The Large Fire at Wadamoya, because of its "technological mastery", then there's indeed nothing further to discuss.

It's an engineer's take on, as you put it, beauty: he'd prefer a single black dot painted in the middle of a white canvas to a Raphael, just because the latter wasn't done with the use of a sketchy delta robot.

 

[Heinz]

I think what has really disappeared is the attention to detail in atmosphere. Hard to describe, harder to pull off.

 

[vaillian]

I never said, you were. I merely stated some examples that using the hardware is not bound to use its technical gimmicks. But if you think that the Amon stage in Double Dragon is aesthetically superior to The Large Fire at Wadamoya, because of its "technological mastery", then there's indeed nothing further to discuss.

yes i do find Amons stage more impressive, if you play it on a CRT TV it looks kinda better.

 

[vaillian]

a common misconception. It is very possible (and necessary) to (objectively) argue about aesthetics, if criteria/standards/scales are used. I believe oliver formulated those very well. If you disagree, you should reason against his conclusions or outright debate the standarts he used as a baseline.

well like i said, its better to have them than not having them at all thats my baseline

 

[oliverclaude]

I think what has really disappeared is the attention to detail in atmosphere. Hard to describe, harder to pull off.

Interesting point, and tho the stage introductions in KoF '95 put atmosphere on most intense levels way before the battle begins, so do the sparse animated postcards in The Last Blade:

a warm candle light
gently touched by cooling drought
little coat of shade

Minataka Moriya Stage...

Rule of thumb: If a stage begets haiku, there is attention to detail in atmosphere.

 

[Tenshinhan]

More technical gimmics doesn't make it better looking. It's the question of concept & visual composition, which, among other things, means perspective, color and most important: proportions of sizes, light and shadow. Hence, there are plenty arguments to counter your assumption (in chronological order): The Last Blade, The Last Blade 2 (featuring one of the most acclaimed back ground graphics of all time: The Large Fire at Wadamoya Stage), The King of Fighters '99, Mark of the Wolves, The King of Fighters 2k & Power Instinct Matrimelee.

All those games fulfill my afore-mentioned requirements for a great looking BG. So, what happened with all the detail and ideas which utilized the hardware after 1996? They evolved, you just did not catch it.

I wholeheartedly agree with you!

 

[Missile]

I agree that newer games usually have worse backgrounds. Compare the newer KOF games to the old one. Backgrounds can look bland, often big arenas, not much going on.

2D graphics with a lot of animation and detail take skill, time and therefore a lot of money to produce. I'm sure I read somewhere it's at least a month per artist per character. Most 2D games just don't sell enough to justify the developer/publisher spending that kind of money on them.

3D games couldn't have detailed backgrounds at first because most of the polygons were being used on the characters and even they weren't that detailed at the time. This is getting better as hardware has become more powerful. But unless you are a guaranteed big seller (e.g. SF) you probably aren't going to spend a lot of extra time and money on background details.

 

[NEO G-TRON]

Great read on everyone's personal opinions on this matter, I also agree that after 96" bg's started to become a bit bland but actual gameplay and speed much better. I personally enjoy the older style SNK games a bit more.

 

[beigemore]

It's amazing what a few frames of animation can pull off when done correctly, particularly with water.

One animation that always pisses me off is Caffeine Garia's going from SS3 to SS4.

SS3 (1995)

SS4 (1996)

 

[Shin9999]

The Real Bout Fatal Fury games had some pretty epic back grounds as well.

 

[oliverclaude]

One animation that always pisses me off is Caffeine Garia's going from SS3 to SS4.

Yeah, unfortunately that goes for his AI, as well.