Mirror's Edge
Team Fortress 2
Cruelty Squad (okay, the game is only a couple years old, but the art style is so intentionally shit that I just can't see it aging at all)
Jet Set Radio, Jet Set Radio Future, and (I predict) Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. BRC also is only a couple years old, but it shares the same style as JSR(F), which has aged very well.
Minecraft
Doom and Doom II (just remember to turn off texture filtering, or set it to nearest neighbor).
The Sims. No, really, I think The Sims games have all aged very, very well. Some better than others, but I feel like each one of them has a visual style that still works today.
TF2 might be the best example of this honestly. It looks like it could have come out today.
Other than that god awful old-school Valve UI used for most of the menus/things.
TF2s aged beautifully (in terms of graphics), the art style carries it astoundingly. Half life 2 and portal look definitively dated but TF2 holds up really well (I know it had graphics updates but still).
Absolutely and the keyframe animation in cinematics is unparalleled. I wish this were more commonplace
I was gonna say Jet Set Radio Future too. I absolutely love the cel shading art style. Will check out Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, thanks
The Sims 1 is great because they were basically rendered sprites.
Also most of the music on Sims 1 is just... some of the best music I've ever heard.
Except the sims and pets themselves those were 3D models
Wind Waker is probably the go-to answer for this. I think Xcom 2 is a good example too, even though it's fairly recent.
Wind Waker is definitely my answer whenever this question pops up. It's one of the few fully-3D games from that era that still holds up moderately well today. A lot of Gamecube games definitely look like Gamecube games when emulated with out-of-the-box settings, but Wind Waker looks like an indie game that could've come out last year when emulated.
The Zelda art teams really are masters at their craft.
The art direction at Nintendo in general is really top tier. I was looking looking at their WiiU games not too long ago. I noticed they don't usually have a lot of complex shapes in their models, they use a surprising amount of flat area, but they jazz them up with extremely well done texturing and shaders.
Honestly, a lot of first party GameCube games have aged incredibly well. Mario Party, Wind Waker, Warioware, Smash, Sunshine, Luigi's Mansion etc. all still look fantastic today, resolution aside.
Any game that isn't trying to go for realistic graphics. Some off the top of my head:
- Braid
- Okami
- Outer Wilds
- Ori and the Blind Forest
Super Mario World. It still looks great.
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island too! So stylized it could release today and still be considered beautiful
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
The music from that is still stuck in my head after all this time.
Great game!
The Portal games.
Jet Set Radio
Wind waker. The cell shading will always look good.
Yup. Sly Cooper still looks great as well.
RollerCoaster Tycoon 1 and 2. They still look as good as the day they were released, while RCT3 looks terrible now.
Okami
Yesss. The way the lines all sort of sway always gives it such a unique look. I was worried the remaster would take some of this away, but it looked just as good.
I wish we could have gotten a proper sequel. RIP Clover Studios.
While less popular, Viewtiful Joe also still holds up for similar reasons.
There's like a newer Capcom game in the works that feels very Okami
I was worried the remaster would take some of this away, but it looked just as good.
The PS2 version looks great after upping the internal res (not sure how much other stuff like filtering/other technicals has an effect). I haven't compared it, but like most remasters I'm going to just say the data bloat is probably not worth potential fidelity improvements. That and I'd guess any design issues are still baked in, thus similar experience.
EDIT: In Okami's case I don't know if the data size is due to uncompressed files or just due to higher-res pre-rendered videos, but either seems wasteful to me. What is live-rendered and what is pre-rendered just seems arbitrary to me, I'd get if it weren't viable on older hardware but you'd think a remaster could handle it mostly in-engine.
Katamari Damashi.
NaNa nanana nanananananana na Katamai Damashiii
The camera control is way worse than I remember from playing it when it came out. Still looks and sounds great, camera moves like a fucking cargo ship in the Suez Canal.
Terraria
Age of empires 2
Journey
Definitely Minecraft
My son was playing Sunset Overdrive the other day, and I had forgotten how cinematic it was. Very fun, very punk rock.
The original XCOM has some of the best pixel art in any game, imo. Original resolution: 320x200. Somehow it is still visually detailed and clear. It has one of my favorite things in a game ever where the tiles you see are partially obscured by tiles you can't. Specifically, the tiles you can't see aren't fully blocked so silhouettes can still be visible. If you're good you can use it to ID aliens lurking in the shadows and sometimes it's literally like 3 pixels of difference for you to pick up on it
Halo 3
Came here to say this too. The lighting is better than most games released in the past 5 years.
StarCraft 2 still looks amazing.
Crysis still looking great.
I would have to say L.A. Noire.
Minecraft
Super Mario World II: Yoshi's Island
I'm still blown away with what SNES was able to accomplish with killer instinct. Based on the games around that time, it shouldn't have existed.
When it comes to 3D games, if they tried for realism, they can't, IMO. Stylized 3D can look pretty good even when fairly old, but old 3D that tried for realism just looks dated. Even a lot of 3D games now that try for a more realistic style (outside of the huge AAA studios) look kinda bad to me, but I'm very sensitive to the uncanny valley effect. I mean, even before they updated the models and world, WoW still looked pretty decent long after release.
Most 2D games. We're only slowly figuring out how to make 3D games not look janky...
total annihilation
Tried that again for a trip down memory lane recently, couldnt get saves to work which really screwed with my ability to have fun.
Because the AI is so shit Id focus on building a small but defensibly untouchable base and let the 3 pc teams on hard and cooperating expand massively before going on the offensive, making taking them down a real grind.
Metroid Prime for the GameCube, but the remake on Switch really turned out to be the consoles best looking game
Borderlands
Many or most retro games from the 80s-early 90s (NES, SNES, Genesis)
Terraria
"team fortress 2"
Man I miss Day of Defeat, it was the best half life mod IMO
Fallout New Vegas?
New Vegas might be my favorite game of all time, but I would by no means say it has good graphics. It has a great vibe to the world and impressive locations, but those character models, man...
Also the pop-in is insane. Seeing Helios One load in is crazy.
Also the pop-in is insane. Seeing Helios One load in is crazy.
Running LodGen with a Lucky 38 remaster mod has been so fucking nice the last 2 weeks.
Can see that shining beacon of beauty from basically anywhere, does wonders to the games vibe
New Vegas is a graphical dilemma for me. It's obviously graphically dated, but it's art and graphics style are such a perfect match for the game and atmosphere that I don't think i'd want to see them updated.
The GFX were dated when it was released, compare it to Halo 3. Halo 3 still looks good and is from 2007, NV was released in 2010... The creation engine is kida trash for GFX even with the '16x fidelity" that FO76 got.
This doesn't mean I don't like it, just stating facts
Red Alert 2. Any N64 game at high resolutions. Command & Conquer Generals at high resolution. If you can't tell, I like cartoon aesthetics.
Valheim, though its more recent, nothing else is quite like it.
Wow ashlands is great. Surprised this isn't higher
It's not higher because it doesn't "hold up" since it's not even fully released yet. It's still in Early Access since 2021.
Jak and Daxter
Borderlands
LittleBigPlanet 1 & 2
Twisted Metal (2012)
COD: BO2 / MW3
Valkyria Chronicles 1 - 4
Super Hexagon
The Conduit on the Wii
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
Hi Fi Rush
XIII
Child of Light (2014)
Left 4 dead, in my opinion. It's fascinating as it's attempting to look realistic yet doesn't look very dated. I think it's because of how good the animations are, and most of the game is dark and gloomy.
Also SCP containment breach. Not graphically impressive but its atmosphere and immersion simply isn't the same without them. I feel no other SCP games captures the atmosphere of Containment Breach.
I love suikoden and suikoden 2. I don't think they'd feel anywhere near the same if the graphics were changed.
Killer7, a very easy choice. That game's visual style will never fail to hold up for me.
The original releases of the Yakuza games did some amazing things with in-game animation that have to be replicated on modern hardware.
West of Loathing. Timeless.
VVVVVV
F-Zero GX comes to mind
Rayman
Sly Cooper
Batman Arkham series
Dragon Quest Heroes Rocket Slime
Battlefront II 2017 still looks gorgeous and like it could have been released yesterday.
Muramasa Rebirth/Demon Blade. Visually and musically spot on.
Also Gravity Rush - awesome soundtrack supporting a clear aesthetic vision.
Jumping Flash! for the PS1. Nothing else like it and I recently found out you can play it in a browser here: https://www.retrogames.cc/psx-games/jumping-flash.html
For me, MGS1. The tone of the game is really helped by its limited detail. It has the dark and serious mood throughout the game that just permeates this looming threat that is Metal Gear and the mysterious Foxhound unit. I think Twin Snakes doesn't look nearly as memorable or unique as MGS1 and I think a modern remake would lose a lot of the tone and atmosphere that the original had.
Oh and the artwork for MGS1 is just so incredibly good.
While heavily reworked through the years, I am continually amazed what they manage to do with World of Warcraft. Doesn't look much like it used to, but as it's all on the same engine, it's really impressive.
Zombies are my neighbors
Sacred
