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Comment by _ph_ | Hacker News Reader

As I have grown up with all kinds of animated cartoons on the TV, I always wanted a computer game which sported that level of graphics. It turns out, that from the raw hardware capability, computers long ago exceeded this ability, yet there is a big scarcity of real animated games. Windwaker (HD) is a really nice exception from that. It looks like an animate comic movie. From this point of view, I am actually happy that Nintendo did not try to make the next best rendering machine, and I hope that the games do benefit from that in an aesthetically sense. Of course I would not mind if Zelda ran at 60FPS, but the visuals look just great.

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Windwaker at 720p is still one of the most amazing looking games I've ever played. Nintendo has always had this right, with a priority on style and look rather than pushing maximum polygons. They know how to make good games that look great and that's always been more important than the underlying hardware power.

I think all kids growing up in this period had fantasies about games matching up with their imaginations of them through some technical revolution.

What modern game dev misses is that it's the space to imagine things within a more abstract visual framework that creates that sense of wonder and possibility. Game aesthetics have to have "space" for their players' imaginations to fill in order to have the same impact as those from earlier eras.

This is exactly why Minecraft is one of my favorite games ever.

Yesterday, my daughter made a pool out of sea lanterns because they look kind of like pool tiles. Would she have thought to do that if the art for sea lanterns was more precise? Probably not.

Agreed but it was easier when games naturally had "space" for imagination because of technical limitations. It is really hard to self-consciously go back and work inside a self imposed frame when everything else is moving ahead.

I still have fond memories of Jet Set Radio on Dreamcast because it captured that cell rendered feel so beautifully.

Lots of cell shaded games. Attack on Titan is pretty awesome for looking like the actual show while playing. Japanese games are huge with this. There's a big push for non photo realistic rendering 3D now in Blender, we're going to see more of this direction in big budget and indie games. The world is still waiting on the release of cuphead, although a little different than NPR 3D.

Wind Waker is a phenomenally designed game, sadly rejected by a lot of people around its release due to the Spaceworld demo in 2000 [1] that left people clamouring for a 'realistic' looking Zelda title. Thankfully over time it has become regarded as one of the best Zelda titles.

I think its graphic style will continue to hold up far better than some of the other titles well into the future. The fact that we can look back at the Spaceworld demo and laugh at how dated it looks is proof enough.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvE3yJv3fm0

I think people rejected it because spending so much time sailing over empty water gets tiring.

Get the HD version for Wii U, it has a feature to boost the boat.

Valid point, it's definitely not without its flaws. It's still one of my favourite Zelda games though.

With Switch they've not only avoided enslaving themselves to the biggest/best bandwagon, but actually used the fact that their hardware is relatively modest to enable them to do things XBox and PS4 can't. Their ARM silicon is more heavily optimized for games than most tablet CPUs, but still enables them to offer an easily portable package.

My iPad is an awesome games platform but we're not going to see a game like LoZ:BotW on it for many years to come (but check out Oceanhorn). It offers great gaming, but in smaller bite sized morsels. My last console was a Wii and I can easily see myself getting a Switch mainly just for Zelda, MarioKart and hopefully a new Endless Ocean.

Yup, it's a smart pivot. Feels very similar to the issues that OEMs face under price pressure. Nintendo has always had a very strong portable showing and I think this will play to their strengths quite well.

There are quite a few good games on iOS these days. The main problem with iOS for gaming is the lack of physical buttons, but some games make up for that with good touch controls.

Here are a few multi-platform games I've been playing on iOS lately that have worked very well:

* Severed

* The World Ends With You: Solo Remix

* Final Fantasy 9

* Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies

The Grand a Theft Auto series, 3 through San Andreas as well. So much fun and the touch controls are excellent. The gunplay is crap, but that doesn't really matter in GTA; it killed MaxPayne for me though, can't stand shooters that rely on auto-aim.

I play the GTA series with a MFi game pad that has a holder for my iPhone. Is awesome.

If you like FF9, you may like FF BraveExvius too; it's also cross-platform and has a healthy user base.

How does TWEWY: Solo Remix work? I have the DS game and it seemed pretty heavy on your partner also doing the thing. That being said, TWEWY:SR is one of the reasons I wish I had an iPhone or iPad. I loved the game, and wish so hard for a sequel. It was one of Squeenix's best games in aesthetic, sound, and story.

I never played the original, but I can describe how this one plays. You touch to move Neku around during exploration and your partner usually follows unless they're running off for plot reasons. During combat you can tap enemies to make Shiki attack them, or swipe downward to make Joshua attack them, etc -- each partner seems to have a different gesture, and if that gesture matches one of your pin's gestures you'll end up doing both attacks at once, which helps build sync. During the golden bat boss battle the screen would scroll upward to Shiki when you had to uncover the lights.

> I always wanted a computer game which sported that level of graphics

There's a bunch of Breath of the Wild fanart out there that purposefully imitates Hayao Miyazaki's style: https://imgur.com/a/t4x4U . Forget realism, something like a playable Princess Mononoke is what I've been craving ever since the dawn of 3D gaming.

Perhaps you were looking for this? Studio Ghibli produced the art for the Ni No Kuni series. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ni_no_Kuni

Have you played Ni no Kuni? It's a co-production between Studio Ghibli and Level 5. Bit more Spirited Away then Mononoke, but it has that Miyazaki aesthetic down regardless.

Have you seen Cuphead?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KaXZcjQiWc

Woah, thanks for this link, never heard of Cupheads before but now it's a definite day one buy.

You're gonna get a lot of game suggestions in response to this comment.

Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies is entirely in 3D but it manages to look a lot like the 2D art style of the previous games.

The recently-released game Hollow Knight has some beautiful hand-animated graphics.

This does look beautiful and is coming out on the Switch! Definitely going to pick this up.

I thought the Wind Waker was the best game I had ever played, if not for the beautiful rendering.

I found it far better than the Twilight Princess' rendering.

Transformers Devastation is about as close to an interactive cartoon as any game has managed so far; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM1StfCCxok It looks pretty much exactly like the cartoons I grew up watching. Apparently it's not a great game though.

Visually, I think it looks fantastic.

I've always liked that visual style.

Borderlands is an aesthetic I like, as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3RShjg6agQ

This is amazing. I would have been the happiest little boy in the world if the Bay obscenities had been just this instead.

And how has no 3D artist on the planet got around to modeling an authentic transforming 1986 Unicron yet?

Do you like platinum style beat-em-up/spectacle fighters? If yes, then for what it is, its a great little game.

If you do not like those games, then no. I got it as a gift, but I would have gladly paid 20-30USD for it. Even though I'm not a massive transformers fan.

Oh man, you're going to love Persona 5! Check out the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPqSkzNNPIg The 4th one is really good too, but definitely feels graphically dated.

Thematically, Persona 4 was just so, so perfect (for me). I loved the spooky noir-ish town setting. Really looking forward to Persona 5 - it looks amazing - but from previews haven't quite got my head around the theme yet.

There are many such games. I just finished Gravity Rush, and currently playing Tales of Zestiria, both of which has a very cartoon style art style.

like dragon's lair?

Right :)

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