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.
Super Mario World. It still looks great.
Everything SNES still looks great! It just doesn’t degrade!
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!
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.
Mirror’s Edge
RollerCoaster Tycoon 1 and 2. They still look as good as the day they were released, while RCT3 looks terrible now.
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
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
That looks amazing, and yeah, very Okami like. Hopefully no Issun though!
Wow. This wasn’t on my radar at all! Definitely going to be checking this out.
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.
Age of empires 2
Transistor
Pong is still unmatched, even after all these years
I’d also consider Tempest.
Yeah, but nothing can beat the Magnavox Odyssey’s graphics
Jet Set Radio
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.
Journey
Terraria
My son was playing Sunset Overdrive the other day, and I had forgotten how cinematic it was. Very fun, very punk rock.
