Games with great environments

[StarSock64]

In honor of VGR's reboot and in hopes of generating some discussion, I thought I'd make some threads about things I like to talk about with people outside of the forums, which generally revolves around effective/ineffective design choices in games.

Note: If someone doesn't agree with you, don't get upset about their opinion. Focus your arguments on what was/wasn't effective and why, not on being "right" or "wrong." If you can't come to an agreement, just move on.

Fur Fighters

What makes the areas in Fur Fighters so good is the sheer amount of content in them. It's a third person shooter, but there are a lot of puzzles, collectibles and secrets in it. The levels are designed so that you're constantly given something new to look at, and many of these things have some form of interaction.

The hub world has all of the playable characters' houses, which adds to their...well, character. There are also unlockable minigames on the consoles in each of their houses, which is nice.

There's a PS2 version with cel shaded graphics and voice acting, and the original version with different graphics and weird simlish grunting on Dreamcast (which is the version I own). It's a little obscure so it's hard to find great pictures/videos of it

Images

(DC version)



(PS2 version)

Videos

I think embedding the videos might mess up the time stamps so
Intended stamp: 46m04s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSRf8Si2aCo&t=11m35s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDGgYcbNy9c&t=20m14s

Mega Man Legends/64

Legends 2 has some good environments too, but I'm going to stick with 1 for now.

MegaMan and co. crash land on an island called Kattelox, which has a city that opens up to you more and more after various licensure procedures, as well as ruins that lead to underground treasure.

The Apple Market is a totally iconic place and a nice little spot that's open to you at the beginning. It's lined with stores that you can actually enter, including clothing stores (which don't serve much function besides being interesting), a music store (that has samples of different genres of music that you can actually listen to), and the junk shop where you buy gameplay-relevant things.

And of course, there's the easter egg where you kick the can into the bakery and get money for keeping the streets clean.



The rest of the city is filled with stuff as well. There's a hospital, a bank, and a library. There are vending machines and moving cars. There's a police station, and the police are actively involved in whatever happens on the island. There's a TV station and a news crew that broadcasts your attempts to stop the pirates. There's a part of the game where the pirates destroy buildings, and the extent of the damage is dependent on your ability to defeat the pirates quickly. Then after that, donations open up, and if you donate enough zenny to the town, you get to see the buildings return from their ruined state. It feels like there's an active, moving world, and you get to feel very much a part of it.

Images

Check out some of how awesome Uptown is at:
http://megaman.wikia.com/wiki/Uptown

The ruins are pretty empty and not the fanciest thing to look at, but they have really iconic...walls. Seriously, though, the textures are cool. I don't think I'd even consider the emptiness a flaw, considering the long hallways and tight rooms contribute to the feeling of being isolated underground. The sound design really helps down there too, keeping the music quiet and making prominent the echoing sounds of Reaverbots you have to look out for.

Images

(PS version)


(64 version)


There's even a minecraft texture mod based on the aesthetic!

[Crappy Blue Luigi]

LA-MULANA

okay, i know what this looks like. i swear, i'm not trying to be a la-mulana fanboy, but it was the first thing that came to mind when i read the thread.

the game is full of beautifully detailed and readable backgrounds. all of the ruins areas have numerous archaeological and mythological references, including statues, sculptures, and other icons from actual civilizations. the game even allows you to check out many of the referential background objects using your hand scanner, giving them names and pointing out similarities to real-world archaeological finds.

Spoiler

on top of that, each section of the ruins is incredibly distinct from the rest. the different areas share no visual similarities, disregarding constant elements like tablets and certain enemies. notably, every part of the ruins has a "backside" with a similar visual theme. the backsides do reuse a lot of material from the frontsides, but they do it in a way that highlights contrasts and continues to differentiate the ruins' sections. at a quick glance, you would not think these two areas are related:

Spoiler

in general, i find the locations to be really memorable. i have an easy time keeping track of where i am, where i want to be, and what goals i have in front of me just by looking at landmarks all over the place. screens with important objects tend to be designed in a way that brings your attention to them.

this room has most entrances moving your character closer to a smaller room to the right, where there used to be a fish you had to attack to solve a puzzle.

[Mystie]

Bayonetta 1 or 2, anyone? Almost every single location in those games looks absolutely stunning and beautiful, especially in Bayonetta 2.

Allow me to demonstrate:

[Gwen]

I don't care if it's already been mentioned or not. Wind Waker, if you seriously think that game has a shitty environment stop talking to me forever.

[Rhyme]

luminous arc1/2/3 were all really good for this in my opinion and shin megami tensei/persona as a whole have always done really well with environments

[StarSock64]

I don't care if it's already been mentioned. Wind Waker, if you serious think that game has a shitty environment stop talking to me forever.

I actually thought about writing something up about this one (maybe I will later)

[Koh]

Any Seiken Densetsu game.





Should be the role model for any pixel artist. Look at the colors and use of detail.

[MoneyMan]

I've been watching a playthrough of Xenoblade Chronicles and, wow. I've never seen a game with such an impressive sense of scale before, with a totally natural feeling world, not to mention visually astounding.

I mean LOOK AT THIS SHIT

This is one of the FIRST AREAS IN THE GAME. EVERYTHING YOU CAN SEE YOU CAN GO TO. EVEN THE THINGS WAY OFF IN THE BACKGROUND. AND THIS IS JUST SCRAPING THE TIP OF THE ICEBURG.

It's amazing how big and fleshed out the world feels.

[puggsoy]

Bastion.

Images

Quite possibly the most overall beautiful game I've played.

Proteus is also quite amazing, it pulls off the pixelated 3D environment very well. Although considering all you do in the game is walk around and admire the place, it's not very surprising.

Images

The Witness isn't released but that looks like it has very promising environments as well:

Video

[Mystie]

I've been watching a playthrough of Xenoblade Chronicles and, wow. I've never seen a game with such an impressive sense of scale before, with a totally natural feeling world, not to mention visually astounding.

I mean LOOK AT THIS SHIT

This is one of the FIRST AREAS IN THE GAME. EVERYTHING YOU CAN SEE YOU CAN GO TO. EVEN THE THINGS WAY OFF IN THE BACKGROUND. AND THIS IS JUST SCRAPING THE TIP OF THE ICEBURG.

It's amazing how big and fleshed out the world feels.

I still need to play Xenoblade Chronicles by the way...

[E-Man]

As far as good environments go, Rare usually has that covered since Donkey Kong Country.

[Eno]

Maybe an unusual choice, but I really liked the environments in Creatures 2. This was a game that I played as a kid and, while the actual artificial life/virtual pet aspect of the game was difficult and frustrating for my young brain to get to grips with (even now it's still a pretty frustrating experience) I remember really loving the world exploration.



For a 2D prerendered world, there was a lot to look at and discover. Forests, beaches, farmland underwater labs, ancient ruins, volcanic caves, they managed to pack a lot into what is a relatively small world when you actually look at it. Yet there was still this element of mystery to it all, since it was this blending of science and nature with the story mentioning stuff about ancient civilizations that left behind all this strange technology. It really made you want to get out and explore... assuming you could actually get your creatures to actually go where you wanted them to, the bastards.

[AuraLancer]

The environments were pretty empty, but often the skyboxes alone made planet exploration in Mass Effect worth it.

Spoiler

[Neweegee]

I don't think I've played a game with environments more awesome than Stunt Rally's.
Especially one that's open-source.

Spoiler

[psychospacecow]

I've always loved the 2.5d sort of aesthetic, where an environment might be a 3D render, or it might even be a painting with 3D characters and objects overlaid on it.

My personal favorite example of this would be Chrono Cross. It did a lot of things right.

Spoiler

You're playing through the span of two worlds, two times in Chrono Cross, 8 years apart, each with changes that never occurred in the last time. I'd go into further detail but spoilers out of the everything. Regardless, there are two versions to every place, and the things you do can change the other side, for better or worse.