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Do you know any games with excellent gameplay but horrible graphics?
^^^ List of games people have mentioned ^^^
- @tenkuucastle Dream Quest
- @Another_KnowItAll Valheim
- @simo Easy Red 2
- @larcohex Heart of Darkness
- @KreekyBonez Pizza Tower
- @KyuuGryphon Half-Life
- @DontCallMeDari Factorio
- @daychilde Simutrans
- @PossiblyBipedal Dragons Age Origins
- @igemnace Nethack
- @spidercat Vampire Survivors
- @DarthYoshiBoy Baba Is You
- @cain Project Zomboid
- @NibblesMeKibbles Cogmind, Devil Daggers, Final Upgrade, Luck be a Landlord, Nightmare Reaper, SNKRX, Vampire Survivors
- @TMarkos Aurora 4X
- @Seagull_McBoye Deadly Premonition
- @monkeywork Rimworld, Shattered Pixel Dungeon, Dwarf Fortress, Vampire Hunter
- @Zelkova Mount and Blade: Warband
- @paddirn Hyper Light Drifter
- @elight Rimworld, Caves of Qud
- @Face BattleBit Remastered
- @hamstergeddon World of Warcraft
- @Lamchop the Combat Mission series
- @GalileoPotato Ocarina of Time
- @an_angry_tiger every 3D game for the PSX
- @RM8 the first Injustice game
- @disk Ravenfield; Brutal Doom/Wolfenstein
- @BreakfastCup Deep Rock Galactic
- @belak Runescape, Minecraft; older games like Deus Ex, Morrowind, System Shock 2, early 3D Final Fantasy games; modern indie gems like Stephen's Sausage Roll, Vampire Survivors, Pizza Tower, West of Loathing, Undertale
- @Plik Tron 2.0 multiplayer frisbee game mode
- @ThrowdoBaggins Outwitters
- @joshbuddy Steven's Sausage Roll
- @Naxes Cruelty Squad
- @de_fa Dwarf fortress; Ultrakill
- @Maxi games from the 70s: Pong, Tetris, age of empires, starcraft, FFVII etc.
Something that exemplify the mantra "don't judge a book by its cover".
For me it's the puzzle game SquishCraft. The mechanics is innovative and the puzzles are hard as hell. But looking at any videos of it and you might think it's a throwaway flash game from the 2000s or something. Here's a playthrough by a Youtuber in case you want to see the game in action.
Meta: Let me know how you feel about having a compilation of the comments included in the topic like this, first time trying so looking for feedback.
Dwarf fortress is the first one that comes to mind, although i tried to play it only once and couldn't understand a thing, waiting for the simplified steam version to come out. But from the youtube videos i watch about it, i can say it's really one of the greatest games out there.
Another one is ultrakill, 10/10 evaluation on steam from 50k reviews, it's a bit chaotic but it's really good aswell.
edit: dwarf fortress has been out on steam for a while now, would absolutely recommend
If you didn't know, Dwarf Fortress is out on Steam.
And Ultrakill really is great. I think it looks good, it sticks the Quake-but-more-colorful vibe just right.
Dwarf Fortress was definitely my first thought as well. I hear it has graphics now, but I'll always think of it as the text based matrix code game.
It's a lot of fun but it has a learning curve for sure. I haven't played it in about a month, but I was really struggling with it, but also enjoying the struggle.
I think the biggest two would be Runescape and Minecraft.
Otherwise, lots of older games have graphics which would be considered dated, but great gameplay. Games like Deus Ex, Morrowind, System Shock 2, and early 3D Final Fantasy games (blocky 3D models on top of rendered 2d backgrounds) come immediately to mind.
For more modern games, there are plenty of indie gems that fit that description: Stephen's Sausage Roll, Vampire Survivors, Pizza Tower, West of Loathing, and arguably Undertale. Some (most?) of those are a stylistic choice, but it's hard to argue that they're easy on the eyes.
My suggestion was going to be Morrowind. I'm currently running through TES3MP with some friends in a self-hosted server and it's been lovely getting back into it, the magic system in that game is truly unique. Nothing quite beats making a custom jump 100 slowfall 1 spell and flying across the map.
I truly wish more people made it past the first rat and got to experience the beauty of its magic and enchanting systems. But sadly most modern people boot the game, sprint to the first worm, then never manage to land a hit because the D&D style dice roll for hits (combined with them sprinting and having 0 stamina = 0% chance to hit)
One of the main reasons I've never had an interest in the modernized Morrowind like Morroblivion or Skywind is that they're taking what I consider the less interesting part of Morrowind (The land) and not taking what I truly love in it (the magic).
Yup. Far more compelling to me than bringing Morrowind into the lackluster-leaning-bad engines of Oblivion and Skyrim is bringing those regions into Morrowind, like Project Tamriel is doing. My favorite part about Morrowind wasn't walking around in the copy-pasted pyramids of Vivec, it was the gameplay, and everything interesting about the gameplay is gone in Oblivion and Skyrim, so Morroblivion and Skywind have nothing for me.
Agree, the gameplay and mechanics of Morrowind are so much better than Oblivion and Skyrim. I put so many hours into Morrowind, but the others never really grabbed me.
I actually really like the look and feel of the world in Morrowind. The environment and architecture felt so alien instead of just bog-standard fantasy.
Deus Ex Revision doesn't increase like model resolution or anything like that, but it changes a lot of stuff to make the game more modern and seem more lived-in and i think it works really well. i only ever play Revision when replaying Deus Ex for the 2475372th time hehe
The first thing that popped into my head was Cruelty Squad. Graphically it reminds me of LSD: Dream Emulator on PS1.
Cruelty Squad might not be an eye-candy, but it's visual design is nothing but competent. It has a vision and follows it faithfully, and the graphics are clever, skilled and reflective of the game's mood.
I'd even go as far as to say it would be half the game it is if the graphics were traditionally "good".
A more recent example would be Slayers X. If the average person looked at a video of it they'd probably think it looks like puke. That's because it does, and that is intentional, as in-fiction it is supposed to be designed by an edgelord teenager in the late 90s, and it absolutely nails what it's going for.
Yeah, far, far less than half even. It lives or dies on those graphics. If you just replaced all the textures with ones that felt realistic or natural you'd lose the entire feel of the world, and without that world the themes wouldn't translate at all.
Yeah it's definitely the best example of this, I can't really think of anyone who would unironically say it looks "good" in a traditional way. The whole point is for it to assault your eyes basically.
BattleBit Remastered is excellent. It's easily the best Battlefield game I've played since Battlefield 2 released in 2005.
It looks like Roblox but is an absolutely solid shooter with great shooting mechanics, with up to 254 players per match, and better destruction than Bad Company 2... And was made by 3 people.
Definitely worth checking out, especially since it only costs $15.
Playing it right now. Fuckin' love this game
I haven't been into modern online shooters for quite a while... but BattleBit is actually FUN.
For anyone considering it; it's being sold as "Early Access" but I think it's polished enough now. And it works decently on my Linux machine.
Just grabbed this, having a blast. It looks like shit but plays amazingly. The gunplay is on bar with modern shooters IMO
Came to this thread to comment about this. Glad so many others are aware of it too!
Steven's Sausage Roll has to be up there. Devious clever game, but deliberately retro graphics.
Nidhogg is also a fun game, but sort of atari-style graphics. Personally really dig that one.
On a side note, I think a similar question came up on reddit, and I posted something similar and then someone took issue with saying it has "bad" graphics. The whole discussion made me a bit sad because I thought it was understood "bad" was being used in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way, and we didn't need to walk on eggshells about what exactly "bad" meant here, but oh well.
The graphics of Stephen's Sausage Roll are a little unappealing at first, but I honestly think they're a big part of what gives the game its uniqueness and charm, at least for me. There's something about them that just works.
Totally agree. I adore that game, but this is the whole discussion of what "horrible" means. Does it mean low fidelity, or some other sort of "bad"? For me the graphics of Stephen's Sausage Roll perfects fits the game.
Did you ever get to play Nidhogg 2? Same great gameplay but they upped the graphics and the strange factor. I love both. I am a firm believer in local multi player.
Oh, no, I hadn't heard of it until now. I'll try it out, thanks!
Deep Rock Galactic. I think it could run on a ps2 if you limit the amount of enemies.
Lol, yeah. Good point. I imagine if scout lit up a massive cave with all his flares it would crash most older systems.
Or even walking in the dark through the Azure Weald lol.
Not sure I'd call it bad graphics exactly. It's certainly no AAA RTX required BS but If you really pay attention to certain things like the lighting you'll notice a lot of effort has gone into making a minimalist game very pretty. I'll never forget the time we broke into a new cavern and the scout launched a flare that just kept going, lighting up everything in it's path before almost fading out in the distance.
This game is a gem, and weight like 3 gigs. Rock and Stone!
Rock and stone to the bone!
Rock and stone!
Rimworld and Caves of Qud. Both operate on retro graphics. Both are deeply complicated and brilliant games.
Interesting that RimWorld is considered to have terrible graphics. I think the graphics are fine. It's 2D, it's nothing special, but there is a distinct art style and I think it's charming.
Same
I keep meaning to look at Qud again. I played a fair bit of it in when it was in development and the creator would post builds to Something Awful. I was super surprised to see it on Steam.
It's still in development
But they're closing in on the next major content patch, which I expect will be the last? At least, I'm not sure how they're going to do better than the next small step.
Mount and Blade: Warband. One of my favorite games of all time, and an insane mod community behind it. It’s a blend of so many genre’s and I don’t think I’ve sunk more time into a single game in a long time.
This is exactly what I was going to comment. While it never really was pretty on the eyes the mechanics and gameplay are so engrossing and satisfying IMO.
I'll admit that I have more time in mods than the base game but that's because they add a setting with a great background, some unique companions and other features that expand on the base game.
One of the all time greats for sure. I wish I could get as into Bannerlord but it just isn't the same, I always end up going back to Warband despite it's age.
I honestly felt like they just fell victim to feature creep with bannerlords. Just so many different systems and some felt fleshed out while others felt a bit half baked. I never expected Bannerlords to live up to Warband purely because Warband got so much right.
Here's a few indie games that require you to have a keen sniffer beyond the first-glance impression of its Store page:
Cogmind
Devil Daggers
Final Upgrade
Luck be a Landlord
Nightmare Reaper
SNKRX
Vampire Survivors
Baba Is You has a very VERY limited artistic style. It's about as bare bones as you can get without being straight ASCII, but it's a brilliant game that punches well above its graphical presentation.
Horrible graphics is maybe a bit harsh, but: Nethack, and the whole roguelike space!
One of the many things I like about Nethack- and Angband-style roguelikes is their being turn-based (so you technically have all the time in the world to think things through) but they still find ways to put you in stressful situations. Ever fallen through a pitfall trap and landed crippled in a room filled to the brim with monsters way out of your level? The gut instinct is to forget it's turn-based and panic and run, and the game punishes you for it.
Keeping calm and being tactical about your solutions in a stressful situation is a skill, and the game lets you hone and apply that skill once you realize it's how the game is played. Modern, real-time, action-based roguelikes let you train your reaction time, coordination, and quick thinking -- which are definitely valuable! -- but I think there's value in being deliberate and tactical, a play style you'll just really see a lot more of in turn-based roguelikes.
For a modern game, I think Factorio fits the bill. It's graphics are pretty simplistic and the color scheme is pretty drab compared to similar games like satisfactory but the gameplay is the best of the bunch. It has a super satisfying loop: Need more resources -> expand base -> get more resources -> tech up -> need more resources. It does a great job of making sure there's always just slightly too much you need to do so you can get lost in the game then look out the window and it's suddenly dark outside.
Ocarina of Time might qualify. It's one of my favorite games of all time, but the graphics haven't held up imo. Hopefully they port the 3ds remake to switch like they're doing with Luigi's mansion dark moon.
Ha I recall reading a video game "roast" article in Game Informer, where the writers just roasted all of our favorite games for fun. They described Ocarina's graphics as looking like someone smeared an inch deep layer of Vaseline across the TV.
Ocarina of time had cutting edge graphics for the time, though.
Frankly almost every N64 game looked like it have vaseline across the TV; there were a handful of (usually 2D) games that were less blurry, but they were fairly rare.
The original Xbox had that effect too; not only did it have mandatory anti-aliasing to make things look blurry, the video output was also fairly poor quality. The early model 360s were bad, too; remember how everyone was complaining about the text on the first Dead Rising game?
Oh no I'm aware, mind you this article was quite literally meant to be a comedy roast. They went down the list of all the most popular and revered games, Zelda, Halo, GTA etc.
Believe me I know it, the leap to 3D was rough. Bread loaf hands, everywhere!
Dead Rising was a fun one, if I recall the text issue (so much text dialogue) was because it was designed for larger, more high def TVs at the time. Which nobody had! I just sat on the floor so I could read whatever the janitor was yelling at me for this time. "It's rude to hang up on people ya know! So anyway..."
The size and resolution was part of it, but it was hard to read even on HDTVs. The problem is that the first generation of the console didn't have HDMI and the analog outputs were really bad even if you were using component video output.
I kind of wish that I had kept my old CRT HDTV with the NTSC tuner and no digital inputs. Sure, it was small and about as heavy as a VW Beetle, but it was perfect for video games. No jaggies ever!
I have no idea what you are talking about /s
All had to start somewhere. That's why I tend to be patient with emerging technology instead of going full doomspeak on how "X will never catch on let it die". For better or worse (mobile may be a more controversial example of something "catching on")
That's cruel but someone needed to say it lol
on the other hand yeah the 3DS remake has aged pretty well graphics-wise imo. it's still dated but it has a lot of charm and colour!~
Vampire Survivors! The graphics are janky as hell but I find it oddly endearing.
It helps that the dev used to work on slot machines, so he knows how to work with limited resources but maximized dopamine hits. Q.E.D.: quintuple chests.
For sure. It's a freaking dopamine factory. The game itself isn't complicated and is rather shallow - but it just hits so good.
I'm not really sure if this would be considered bad graphics. But I played it many many years after it was released so the graphics were considered bad by the time I played it.
But Dragon Age Origins. I really enjoyed the mechanics and the gameplay. I didn't even care for the story all that much. I just really liked managing my party and getting them to do combos together. Setting up their automatic reactions and things like that.
I couldn't get into the second one.
I then played Dragon Age inquisition, which obviously has better graphics, but I didn't enjoy it as much as Origins. I got near the end, but I didn't finish the game.
I just really liked setting up my party tactically and managing them. The newer Dragon Age kind of did away with a lot of that.
I've replayed origins several times just because I enjoy the gameplay.
But on a separate note, I also really liked flirting with my companions.
I replay DA:O every few years, and every time I start a new save I'm briefly startled by how the game looks. It looks so much better in my memories, but then the actual game is just all shades of brown and blurry textures. But the gameplay (and for me, the story) is just so much fun.
I know Inquisition was a huge upgrade in graphics, but personally, I don't really love the art direction. I'm excited to see what Dread Wolf is going to look like whenever it comes out.
Yeah. Inquisition's art direction was pretty generic. If it was better looking, I might have kept going.
I had no idea Dread Wolf was happening. I'm excited for it.
Edit: I looked it up and I'm significantly less excited now. The only thing I liked about the original game was the mechanics. It's the one thing they're not keeping.
Tron 2.0 multiplayer frisbee game mode. Super simple graphics, ridiculously fun gameplay.
Maybe not excellent, but I think the first Injustice game was a pretty good first attempt at making a non-Mortal Kombat fighter by NRS. Sadly, I found it really rough on the eyes, especially character models. Thankfully they improved a ton since then, and Injustice 2 is still one of the best looking fighting games IMO.
Every game for the first PlayStation, well maybe not the 2D ones, those ones sidestep the major issue.
It's not the games fault, it's the PSX hardware limitations. It was a very influential console when it came out but was missing out on a few features that became mandatory in all subsequent consoles.
Didn't have mip mapping, didn't have a z-buffer, and could only use integer numbers for graphics processing, no floating points. Full detail here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8TO-nrUtSI
As a result, every 3D game for the PSX now looks like a weird shaky wobbly pixellated janky mess. Not a fault of the games themselves, the art direction of many are still great, and this doesn't affect the gameplay of the many big game franchises to come out of the PSX era. When going back and playing those games on an original PSX console, or even emulating them now, getting over the weird graphics issues is a difficult step that's noticeable all the way through.
i kiiiiiinda love the wobbly graphics on the PSX though. it has a weird charm to it :) definitely didn't age well though~
I think the reason is PSX games were made for CRT screens. If you take a look at some comparisons for PSX CRT vs LCD you can see that CRT in general looks better and even produces a bit more detail.
World of Warcraft comes to mind. All of the modern expansion pack content looks pretty decent (though definitely and intentionally not generation-defining graphics). But the game consists of models and textures spanning 20 years at this point. Blizzard has made some efforts to modernize some of the commonly seen older models (character models in particular).
But the further back you go, the uglier the game gets. The core gameplay is mostly the same, it's just really ugly when you visit Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King zones. There's still a beauty to them, again thanks to the cartoony art style, but they're clearly 10-15 year old graphics at this point. The only reason there isn't even more ugly old stuff is that they revamped the vanilla world in the third expansion pack, but even that's been showing its age for a while.
Whether or not one considers WoW to be "excellent gameplay" really depends on the person though. I personally love the game, although for my family's sake I don't play it anymore. Otherwise it's all I'd do!
Project Zomboid. It has some graphics that make you think you’re playing the original sims game, but the gameplay is so deep and rich that the graphics have become part of the charm
You may be excited to jump back in when they release the next big patch; they're expanding post-apocalyptic crafting so that you can extend your gameplay beyond when the cities are picked mostly clean.
Less "horrible graphics" and more "dated graphics", but Half-Life certainly comes to mind for me. It's not perfect, but it's still a blast to play - the NPC interactions, the level design, all of it. Half-Life 2 and its episodes just don't come close in my mind, for a number of reasons.
Black Mesa came really damn close to unseating HL1 as one of my favourite games of all time... but it kinda blew that chance hard in final analysis, between some of the really obtuse/awkward flow changes in 1.0, the (IMHO) unappealing noisy terrain overhaul in 1.5, and a litany of bugs that were known about since at least 2019 (if not earlier) that were never addressed, from animation issues and texture bugs to AI problems, softlocks, and crashes. I can't say I don't still like it to some extent, but seeing as it was partly responsible for getting me into Valve games (and, by extension, modding and game dev in general), it's a pretty sour note for things to have ended on. Oh well.
I've been meaning to try out Black Mesa since the visual upgrade seems impressive, do you think the gameplay is an improvement or more of the same to the original Half-Life?
So, um. I wrote out, like, two bloody thesis papers' worth of text about how I feel about Black Mesa and Crowbar Collective (the developers) in general, but - I think I could probably just summarize it like this:
In my opinion - as someone who's arguably a bit of an HL1 purist - it's an improvement in some ways, and a downgrade in others. Though I feel like some of the design choices made over the last few years have been questionable, I can't say it's a bad game... but given my experiences with CC and how they've handled bug reports, user support, and communication in general, I can't recommend it in good faith regardless. Maybe pick it up if it's on sale or something.
Pizza Tower is a good one. Unashamedly based on the old Wario games, and features some really bizzaro 90s graphics and themes, but the gameplay is incredibly solid and engaging.
I’ve got to put a word in for Outwitters — a turn-based strategy game on iOS that’s well past it’s heyday, but the cutesy adorable cartoony graphics really hide the incredibly deep strategy game underneath it all. There’s movement and attack range to consider, fog of war, resource economy, special troops with unique abilities — all incredibly simplified (almost minimalist) versions of these traits, which makes for such a clean space for strategy to shine.
I’m sad that it didn’t have the means to support itself further, and didn’t reach the heights it deserved.
Ravenfield, which is a "Battlefield style" shooter made by an indie developer. The graphics are mostly flat, with textures often being omitted except for terrain, and the whole game feels like a "beta" of a larger game.
However, the gunplay is very good, the movement is great, it is easy to mod and also great fun. Since the soldiers are completely red/blue, that makes them "pop out" in the environment and makes things fairer. However, if you want, there are mods that include historically accurate (albeit minimalistic) player models.
Brutal Doom/Wolfenstein are honorable mentions, since they're both mods and are based on a game that was praised for its graphics when it was originally created. However, the graphics feel very dated nowadays. Nevertheless, the game plays in a refreshingly brisk manner, the guns feel exceptionally responsive, with custom animations depending on where your enemies are shot, and it has a degree of fast paced movement that the original Doom would greatly benefit from.
Check out battlebit! Closest thing to Battlefield in recent history, with 256 player servers.
Nice! Are the servers still heavily populated?
If you're a fan of crunchy military strategy/tactics games, the Combat Mission series is a great example. Some of the most realistic company/battalion level combat there is but the graphics are stuck in 2008.
Operational/strategic wargames in general tend to not put much effort into attractive visuals.
Not sure if it really counts, but Hyper Light Drifter is a work of art that uses pixelated 2D graphics. It's not what might be considered traditionally "beautiful" graphics like if you compared it to something like Horizon Zero Dawn or other open-world games with incredible detail.
Hyper Light Drifter is too beautiful in my book but I can see how not everyone is on board with pixel arts in general.
That's the problem, though, right? There are a lot of games with simplistic or unconventional graphics that are still "beautifully done". It's difficult to present them in response to a request for "horrible graphics"!
Hyper Light Drifter is beautiful! I bought the game purely for its graphics alone. I didn't really know what I was signing up for gameplay wise.
I ended up enjoying the gameplay and the graphics. It's a win all around.
I spent WAY too much time playing Shattered Pixel Dungeon on my phone, definitely had to delete it.
I have to mention one of my favorite games of all time, Deadly Premonition. Looks pretty ugly, unwieldy to control, janky beyond compare... But weirdness, story, and characters are so endearing and captivating. Lots of people give it the "so-bad-it's-good" label, but it's so much more than that to me. I haven't played the sequel yet, but it's near the top of my backlog.
Had to come in here to make sure someone mentioned Aurora 4X. It's an immensely detailed space 4X simulator, where you design and build spaceships, handle the logistics of their resupply, terraform planets, etc. The interface looks like a piece of 90's financial software because, well, that's what the creator was used to. Amazingly deep gameplay though.
What is your definition of bad graphics? There’s a lot of excellent games from the 70s through to now that have horrible graphics compared with modern standards, but where the gameplay is good fun.
Pong, Tetris, age of empires, starcraft, FFVII etc.
No definitions ;) I think it'd be more fun to let it be up to everyone's personal interpretations. The heart of the question to me is if there's any game you enjoy playing but also recognize that someone else might be put off from picking it up due to its appearance, this is the opportunity for you to convince that hypothetical person to give that game a another chance.
As a general rule I feel like everyone can go back one generation from what they played as a kid. I was born in 84 and mostly grew up playing 16-bit SNES games. I think 8 bit NES games look fine, but stuff before that isn't so great.
Ironically I also think a lot of 16 bit graphics aged a lot better than that first generation of polygons on the N64 and Playstation.
Oh yeah, some Super Nintendo games are downright gorgeous. Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, Zelda Link to the Past, Megaman X, so nice.
do you have a pak recommendation to make the graphics a little less dated/more appealing?
Heart of Darkness
Very old but I still love to replay it
What!? Heart of Darkness has incredible graphics! Especially in terms of animation. There's a reason that Eric Chahi is famous for his work, and Heart of Darkness is some of his best.
Easy Red 2.
Imagine a modern game WWII game that lets you play lots of cool maps with bots [also can co-op], along with a lot of cool features for such a small scale dev game.
The graphics aren't horrible as such, but the presentation is certainly still a bit raw. Well worth it for those WWII game fans and offline/bot kinda fun enjoyers.
As far as a modern game goes the first thing that came to mind was Valheim. You can't even really tell what your character looks like and the background is just okay. But the gameplay is amazing and by far my favorite survival game. I have nearly 700 hours into multiple play throughs and the devs are still releasing new content regularly.
Dream Quest looks… rough.
But it’s an excellent roguelike deckbuilder that has some of the best balancing and progression I’ve seen in the genre!
It’s on mobile+pc/mac and it’s usually pretty cheap!