Gaming hot takes?
Gaming hot takes?
Any weird/controversial opinions? I'll start. Before the remake, the best version of Resident Evil 4 was the Wii version. The Wiimote controls old Resi's tank controls better than any other controller at the time. The PC version had a bunch of little bugs and detractors that the Wii version just doesn't have.
I'll extend this by saying that the Wiimote is actually pretty damn good for shooters, and particularly good for accessibility. Not having to cramp up my hands to press buttons is awesome for having arthritis. Aiming with the Wiimote and moving with the nunchuck just feel really natural, you barely have to move your fingers for anything.
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It's not a super-hot take, but art style >>>>> graphics when it comes to "beautiful" looking games. There are games coming out today that can run on a toaster that look far better than many AAA titles with all the fancy lighting effects and ray tracing that require you to dump 4-digit sums into a monster gaming PC to fully enjoy, all due to how the smaller games masterfully handle their art design.
What about simple graphics that still need a server farm to run correctly, or intricate graphics on a potato PC? Would you still say art style >> graphics?
I think this take got ice-cold shortly after Windwaker released.
The issue is that game developers have been using this as a crutch to do less and still charge full-price. Even with Windwaker, I always found the art style was inappropriate for the tone the rest of the game tried to set. It really felt more like they were trying to save time and money than actually having something that serves that art. That style worked pretty well in the handheld games, but I just don't think it holds up as well as Twilight Princess on a big screen.
I enjoy the occasional 16-bit style indie game, but I'm not paying $60 or $70 for that. I love Supergiant games, and they all look amazing, but even they know that art style can only push the price so far. There's also value in a game that is realistic and not stylized, especially in military shooters and racing games.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have AAA games from big studios selling for full-price that have neither. Look at GameFreak's Switch games: terrible quality textures, uninspired lighting, bad draw distance, terrible FPS, and they literally cut to a black screen describing what your character does instead of animating anything. And the art style is just the most generic anime-style imaginable. It looks like Nintendo too the Mii system and just made some minor updates and used that to make human models. This may be a hot take, but I think the models in TotK and BotW are the same. The devs create some fancy clothes, hair, and accessories, but the actual models are bland. It's essentially the Mii system.
Graphics and art style are not mutually exclusive. It's fair to ask for both in a full-price game.