5 ms·

This is due to a stylistic choice that Nintendo makes - they don’t care about photorealism at all as a design goal. Almost every other game is measured by the

This is due to a stylistic choice that Nintendo makes - they don’t care about photorealism at all as a design goal. Almost every other game is measured by the yardstick of how “realistic” the games artwork looks when playing, which means those types of games are forever craving more resources and graphics compute as it becomes available. Nintendo uses bright colours, cartoon-like designs and sparse environments that require an order of magnitude less compute per frame but still look great. You can see this on a Switch if you play a game of Mario Kart 8 or Splatoon 3 then immediately launch a multi-platform game like Fortnite or Apex Legends that isn’t designing for limited resources. The difference is completely night and day. As it happens, both of the latest Zelda games are IMHO the most beautiful open worlds created on any platform - likely because not focusing on photorealism allows for more freedom with the artwork itself.

kyriakos 3y ago
Since you mention Zelda, I have to add that Zelda at this point plays better (higher res and frame rate) on emulators than on the platform it was made for because of its hardware limitations.
- highwaylights 3y ago
  It has a higher frame rate and resolution, but it doesn’t necessarily play “better”, depending on how you view the importance of the native controllers etc. That said, it speaks more to the point of designing for something other than reality simulation. If other games focused less on looking “real” they’d likely see vastly better performance on normal hardware.
  - Nexxxeh 3y ago
    >it doesn’t necessarily play “better”, depending on how you view the importance of the native controllers etc. You can have the same graphics, same controllers, just better performance, if you so desire. You can play with Joycons, or when playing with other controllers (like an Xbox controller), you can have the UI changed to match. I used a 360 controller and left the UI stock. And you can just turn off Switch-specific quality drops that are used to improve performance on the Switch hardware (at least one of which actually drops performance in emulation, see "LOD Improvement" mod), and/or use better quality emulated versions for an experience that is effectively a theoretical "Switch Pro". I think in this specific instance, better isn't really that subjective.
    - highwaylights 3y ago
      Get any funny looks on the train with that setup?
      - Nexxxeh 3y ago
        I get funny looks without it, so I probably would.
        highwaylights 3y ago
        Nicely done. Same. Maybe some day we'll exchange funny looks at each other!
  - shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
    > It has a higher frame rate and resolution, but it doesn’t necessarily play “better”, depending on how you view the importance of the native controllers etc. I literally use a Switch controller over bluetooth with my switch emulator.
  - evilduck 3y ago
    The Switch hardware is visibly inadequate for even their own first party games built in the last few years that use a compensatory art style. 4k@120fps isn't needed and I'm not even particularly a highly concerned gamer that nitpicks about frame rates but you can watch many of their games frequently dip from something acceptably smooth above 30fps into 10-20 fps slideshows. Inconsistency is worse than low, especially if you're required to time button presses which is something Nintendo loves to implement in their game designs.
causi 3y ago
Lately I've noticed increasing visual fidelity is actively hurting my gaming experience. There's just too much stuff to look at and filtering things that are worth paying attention to from things that aren't is taking more and more effort. Take a game like Starfield where every desk has a hundred pieces of random garbage on it and may or may not have something really valuable, so you either spend half your play time staring at shelves or you miss out on that thing you needed. Design counts for so much more than triangles. A Series X game character has twenty times the polygon count of an Xbox 360 character yet somehow Johnny Silverhand looks like plastic-skinned garbage compared to Marcus Fenix.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Zardoz84 3y ago
Fornite it's exactly a game with bright colours, cartoon like designs and horrible optimized game
- highwaylights 3y ago
  It’s a test bed for the latest unreal engine, but it still performs very well on a lot of different hardware. The switch port likely struggles because it needs to be compatible with the other versions for cross-platform play, so it has to support the same resources (map layout/assets etc) that higher end machines do. There’s a limit to how much you can optimise something when you can’t fundamentally alter it and still keep your other customers happy.
- jorvi 3y ago
  Way back in 2018 they were able to optimize the game enough to bring up the PS4 build from locked 30 to locked 60. Few games have ever had a feat like that performed, so I don’t think “horrible optimized” is fair.
Toutouxc 3y ago
> latest Zelda games are IMHO the most beautiful open worlds created I’ve only played BoTW (and I enjoyed it a lot), but tbh I can’t really remember any distinct environments except maybe the volcanic region, Kakariko village and the Korok forest. IMO the minimalism of the game world simply doesn’t give the designers enough “tools” to create impressive environments, at least compared to games like Horizon Zero Dawn or Red Dead Redemption 2, or even Skyrim.
- highwaylights 3y ago
  It’s really a matter of opinion so I wouldn’t say you’re wrong, but IMHO a scene like this looks beautiful: https://i.redd.it/3sm84daxpai21.jpg https://i.redd.it/3sm84daxpai21.jpg Even though the actual models are relatively low detail compared to something like HZD or RDR2 (which also look great).
pdpi 3y ago
This has long been one of World of Warcraft's strengths as well. Even with incremental improvements, that engine is still almost twenty years old. Their great art direction with distinctly stylised art has let the game age way better than it otherwise would have.
- DiggyJohnson 3y ago
  Same with (Old School) RuneScape. It used to run in the browser for goodness sake.
- rollcat 3y ago
  StarCraft II (2010) also still looks great, and scales well from low-end to high-end systems. CPU utilization in team games (with lots of units) is the bigger issue, but that's a hard problem in RTS games.
gjsman-1000 3y ago
There’s also one more advantage: Nintendo games, in general, age much better over time. It turns out stylization doesn’t look dated nearly as quickly… If you took a random segment of the population and let them try the top games on a GameCube versus a PS2 in 2023, I think the GameCube would win handily.
dartharva 3y ago
> likely because not focusing on photorealism allows for more freedom with the artwork itself. How does constraining color and design schemes allow for more art freedom? There are much fewer options in art design for game developers on a hardware-constrained platform like the Switch as against PC or the mainstream consoles. You can make minimalist and cartoonish games on them as well, if you wish.
- highwaylights 3y ago
  I’m not sure the market will let you do that. There have been a fair few non-photo-realistic games on PC and console but they’re not system sellers, and rarely move the needle. For every Hades there’s pages on pages of indie games in Steam and the PS/Xbox marketplaces that hardly anyone has played or ever will again - many of which were well received by critics but just didn’t sell.
Eric_WVGG 3y ago
I frankly don't understand why photorealism is a goal for almost _any_ game project. Look outside games for a moment, at the "Spider-verse" movies. Universally lauded for their splashy, comic-book style animation. Imagine those movies if the CGI was photorealistic… or if they were just straight-up filmed! Fantasy and fantastical stories benefit from artistic flair. Even a game like Call of Duty, IMO, would benefit from some cel-shading and a more rotoscoped look. (I'm probably the only person who was disappointed to see that the next GTA game looks more like reality than GTA box art, which always should have been their stylistic lighthouse.)
- aragilar 3y ago
  I prefer the Spider-verse movies over MCU spiderman, but both Nolan Batman and early MCU showed that photorealism can work if the tone/plot/etc. matches and uses photorealism effectively. Similarly, using animation effectively, as the Spider-verse movies, the various Marvel cartoons of the 90s (IMHO animated teenage Iron Man is more interesting than MCU Iron Man), or even ATLA (unlike the movie...) did, also show that you can tell interesting and deep stories even though it's not live action.

kyriakos 3y ago

Since you mention Zelda, I have to add that Zelda at this point plays better (higher res and frame rate) on emulators than on the platform it was made for because of its hardware limitations.

highwaylights 3y ago
It has a higher frame rate and resolution, but it doesn’t necessarily play “better”, depending on how you view the importance of the native controllers etc. That said, it speaks more to the point of designing for something other than reality simulation. If other games focused less on looking “real” they’d likely see vastly better performance on normal hardware.
- Nexxxeh 3y ago
  >it doesn’t necessarily play “better”, depending on how you view the importance of the native controllers etc. You can have the same graphics, same controllers, just better performance, if you so desire. You can play with Joycons, or when playing with other controllers (like an Xbox controller), you can have the UI changed to match. I used a 360 controller and left the UI stock. And you can just turn off Switch-specific quality drops that are used to improve performance on the Switch hardware (at least one of which actually drops performance in emulation, see "LOD Improvement" mod), and/or use better quality emulated versions for an experience that is effectively a theoretical "Switch Pro". I think in this specific instance, better isn't really that subjective.
  - highwaylights 3y ago
    Get any funny looks on the train with that setup?
    - Nexxxeh 3y ago
      I get funny looks without it, so I probably would.
      - highwaylights 3y ago
        Nicely done. Same. Maybe some day we'll exchange funny looks at each other!
- shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
  > It has a higher frame rate and resolution, but it doesn’t necessarily play “better”, depending on how you view the importance of the native controllers etc. I literally use a Switch controller over bluetooth with my switch emulator.
- evilduck 3y ago
  The Switch hardware is visibly inadequate for even their own first party games built in the last few years that use a compensatory art style. 4k@120fps isn't needed and I'm not even particularly a highly concerned gamer that nitpicks about frame rates but you can watch many of their games frequently dip from something acceptably smooth above 30fps into 10-20 fps slideshows. Inconsistency is worse than low, especially if you're required to time button presses which is something Nintendo loves to implement in their game designs.

causi 3y ago

Lately I've noticed increasing visual fidelity is actively hurting my gaming experience. There's just too much stuff to look at and filtering things that are worth paying attention to from things that aren't is taking more and more effort. Take a game like Starfield where every desk has a hundred pieces of random garbage on it and may or may not have something really valuable, so you either spend half your play time staring at shelves or you miss out on that thing you needed. Design counts for so much more than triangles. A Series X game character has twenty times the polygon count of an Xbox 360 character yet somehow Johnny Silverhand looks like plastic-skinned garbage compared to Marcus Fenix.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Zardoz84 3y ago

Fornite it's exactly a game with bright colours, cartoon like designs and horrible optimized game

highwaylights 3y ago
It’s a test bed for the latest unreal engine, but it still performs very well on a lot of different hardware. The switch port likely struggles because it needs to be compatible with the other versions for cross-platform play, so it has to support the same resources (map layout/assets etc) that higher end machines do. There’s a limit to how much you can optimise something when you can’t fundamentally alter it and still keep your other customers happy.
jorvi 3y ago
Way back in 2018 they were able to optimize the game enough to bring up the PS4 build from locked 30 to locked 60. Few games have ever had a feat like that performed, so I don’t think “horrible optimized” is fair.

Toutouxc 3y ago

> latest Zelda games are IMHO the most beautiful open worlds created I’ve only played BoTW (and I enjoyed it a lot), but tbh I can’t really remember any distinct environments except maybe the volcanic region, Kakariko village and the Korok forest. IMO the minimalism of the game world simply doesn’t give the designers enough “tools” to create impressive environments, at least compared to games like Horizon Zero Dawn or Red Dead Redemption 2, or even Skyrim.

highwaylights 3y ago
It’s really a matter of opinion so I wouldn’t say you’re wrong, but IMHO a scene like this looks beautiful: https://i.redd.it/3sm84daxpai21.jpg https://i.redd.it/3sm84daxpai21.jpg Even though the actual models are relatively low detail compared to something like HZD or RDR2 (which also look great).

pdpi 3y ago

This has long been one of World of Warcraft's strengths as well. Even with incremental improvements, that engine is still almost twenty years old. Their great art direction with distinctly stylised art has let the game age way better than it otherwise would have.

DiggyJohnson 3y ago
Same with (Old School) RuneScape. It used to run in the browser for goodness sake.
rollcat 3y ago
StarCraft II (2010) also still looks great, and scales well from low-end to high-end systems. CPU utilization in team games (with lots of units) is the bigger issue, but that's a hard problem in RTS games.

gjsman-1000 3y ago

There’s also one more advantage: Nintendo games, in general, age much better over time. It turns out stylization doesn’t look dated nearly as quickly… If you took a random segment of the population and let them try the top games on a GameCube versus a PS2 in 2023, I think the GameCube would win handily.

dartharva 3y ago

> likely because not focusing on photorealism allows for more freedom with the artwork itself. How does constraining color and design schemes allow for more art freedom? There are much fewer options in art design for game developers on a hardware-constrained platform like the Switch as against PC or the mainstream consoles. You can make minimalist and cartoonish games on them as well, if you wish.

highwaylights 3y ago
I’m not sure the market will let you do that. There have been a fair few non-photo-realistic games on PC and console but they’re not system sellers, and rarely move the needle. For every Hades there’s pages on pages of indie games in Steam and the PS/Xbox marketplaces that hardly anyone has played or ever will again - many of which were well received by critics but just didn’t sell.

Eric_WVGG 3y ago

I frankly don't understand why photorealism is a goal for almost _any_ game project. Look outside games for a moment, at the "Spider-verse" movies. Universally lauded for their splashy, comic-book style animation. Imagine those movies if the CGI was photorealistic… or if they were just straight-up filmed! Fantasy and fantastical stories benefit from artistic flair. Even a game like Call of Duty, IMO, would benefit from some cel-shading and a more rotoscoped look. (I'm probably the only person who was disappointed to see that the next GTA game looks more like reality than GTA box art, which always should have been their stylistic lighthouse.)

aragilar 3y ago
I prefer the Spider-verse movies over MCU spiderman, but both Nolan Batman and early MCU showed that photorealism can work if the tone/plot/etc. matches and uses photorealism effectively. Similarly, using animation effectively, as the Spider-verse movies, the various Marvel cartoons of the 90s (IMHO animated teenage Iron Man is more interesting than MCU Iron Man), or even ATLA (unlike the movie...) did, also show that you can tell interesting and deep stories even though it's not live action.