Friday Fight Club: Pixel Graphic Games

It sometimes feels as though every single pixel art game from the last few years has been accompanied by a million souls crying out in torment that “I didn’t buy a PlayStation 4 for this!” The announcement of each month’s PlayStation Plus and Games with Gold additions are almost universally met with an overwhelming outpouring of disappointment and grief at being physically forced by Sony and Microsoft to play games that look like they came from the dark days before Wolfenstein 3D was released.

Tuffcub remembers those days all too clearly, and he doesn’t want to go back. In fact, he’s ready to step outside and fight about it, but is he right? Welcome to our first (and possible last) Friday Fight Club, where two of our staff with diametrically opposed views on a subject duke it out in a dimly lit basement. So, facing off against Tuffcub is Dave, who will try to convince you of the need for pixel art in our world.

Then it’s over to you. Let us know your views in the comments and post in support of Team Dave or Team Tuff.  Without further ado, it’s over to TC.

The time has come to say “Enough is enough”, no more pixel games. Goodbye indie titles with super-retro graphics, begone you hipster monstrosities with quirky, blocky characters. We need to make the pixel game plague come to an end.

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1) They are embarrassing

Pixel graphic games were amusing at first but have now become a source of embarrassment, particularly on PlayStation Plus. I am very conscious that on my Tube journey to work that my sexy PS Vita is playing a game that looks like it was created in 1985, whilst the chap beside me is playing a gorgeous looking game in full 3D on his mobile phone.

Pixel games look even worse when blown up on a 52″ TV by my PlayStation 4. Your friends will laugh in your face when they see your super powerful console playing something an Atari 2600 could handle. Just look at Proteus, which is otherwise known as Flower running on a Commodore 64 but with all the fun bits removed.

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2) They look rubbish

Your game looks crap so rather than improve it, why not make a joke about it looking crap? That’s a good plan.

Words cannot describe just how mad this video makes me. This is a PlayStation 4 game!

Developers, your new title may be the bestest fun evs, but if you think I’m even going to bother to download it when the graphics have be designed by your five year old niece in MS Paint then think again. By the way, top marks for the quirky retro TV screen effect, that’s such a clever idea that literally no one has ever thought of before…

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3) They are badly designed

Pixel games can take the retro element to the extreme and can lack the most basic of tutorials or hints. Let’s look at this months PS+ offering, XeoDrifter.

There are four planets you can visit, two of which are blocked by seemingly impassable pools or water, and two by large aliens. I tried swimming down which didnt work, I tried killing the large aliens, and again nothing seemed to work. I must have pumped thirty bullets in to the large square alien and zippo.

I had to go to Twitter and find out what I had to do; when you have to ask what to do in the first minute of a game, that’s a sign of bad design. It turns out I could kill one of the aliens and after many attempts I did and was, for no reason, gifted a submarine. This let me explore a little more, but once again I’m finding dead ends and seemingly invincible enemies with no indication of what to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw-6AkQinxg

Would it be hard to place a signpost? I’m not asking for much, just a sign saying “Beat this guy to get the Jet pack”. It is? You want to stick to retro game design as it fits your art style? Right then, your game gets deleted. I haven’t got time for this.

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4) No pixel graphics = better game

OlliOlli and Velocity were both pixel games, but for the sequels the devs dropped the blocks and went for a cleaner, smoother look. The art is still stylised and in some places quite simple, but the graphics make the games more enticing. Both sequels look vastly superior to their predecessors.

Hmmm. Looks alright-ish, I suppose.

YES! Gorgeous!

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5) None of the games are Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, or Parasol Stars

This is a crime. Square Enix own the rights but they spend all their time remaking Final Fantasy VII rather than Bub and Bob.

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Obviously I’m not being entirely serious with my points but the fact is there are far too many average-to-rubbish pixel games coming to PlayStation. One or two could be seen as quirky, a nice reminder of the past, but when there are hundreds of games, the style simply becomes tiresome. They are perceived as lazy, cheap, and there may be some brilliant games with pixel graphics but I, and many others, will simply not bother looking at them.

Never Alone, Beyond Eyes, Drive!Drive!Drive!, SuperBeat:Xonic and others will be getting my cash. Pixel games will get nothing.

Unless Rainbow Islands is released, then I’m all over that shit.

I can’t take this anymore. Tuffcub has been moaning all week long about how these games with pixel graphics are the devil, like some kind of evangelical doomsayer. It’s about time someone stood up to defend against his rhetoric.

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1) Pixels aren’t always embarrassing

Not all pixel art 2D games are created equal, but those where a little extra effort has been made to jazz it up are among the best games you’ll find out there. For every Thief Town out there, there is always a Shovel Knight.

Nidhogg is probably the best example of a game whose visual fidelity looks pants at a first glance, but the more you play it, the more subtle the mechanics get and the better the art style seems to fit. Apparently it took the creator years to make this game on his own, and we can assume that a lot of the development time went on the mechanics. Sure it’s a simplistic fencing game, but it’s immensely enjoyable.

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2) Bad game design isn’t restricted to those with pixels 

This particular point really gets my goat. You only need to play the first level of Shovel knight to understand where I’m coming from. Obstacle aren’t resolved by simply telling you what to you, but by giving you a safe environment to learn for yourself. What Tuffcub experienced with XeoDrifter is not indicative of the art style, but a case where a MetroidVania game has allegedly not done a good job in guiding him through the first bit.

But you want to play the whole “pixel games don’t belong on PS4” card? Well I did some digging around and found one of the two 1/10 games that we have handed out. Turns out it was a PS4 game with 3D graphics: Fluster Cluck.

Not good enough? Then how about the PS3’s Unearthed: Trail of Ibn Battuta: Episode 1?

Not a bare pixel in sight, but both are worse than any other game TSA have ever reviewed.

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3) Even polished up 3D side-scrolling games can be awful

Aran, I’m sorry to dredge this one back up, but it raises an important point. Red Goddess is an example of a game that has a wonderful looking presentation but allegedly fails in its job of being fun to play. The design of the game itself was apparently so frustrating that even the trailer looks like an endless barrage of enemies.

There are worse games out there and indeed there are terrible pixel games – Fist of Awesome is definitely one of them – but it’s unfair to generalise that all games with a pixel design have this trait when so many other games are worse, much worse…

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4) The OlliOlli/Velocity conundrum

I will concede that the sequels to both of these games are drastically better than their originals, but what Tuffcub needs to consider is that these games wouldn’t have existed without the originals. That’s something that’s true across the indie scene.

Gameplay is paramount to whether a game gets a sequel, and I’m sure we can agree that it should be first and foremost in where a game’s budget goes. If that means that a small team of developers can’t afford to hire an artist to lavish them with wonderful artwork, thus giving them more time to polish and refine the gameplay itself, then so be it. It worked for both OlliOlli and Velocity, which even in their pixelated form were no slouches in the visual department.

Where a developer decides to go from there is completely up to them. Yes, both sequels in this case went with a smoother style, but they could easily have stayed with the pixel art style, and the sequels wouldn’t have seen much in the way of negativity if the gameplay continued to be compelling.

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5) Did I mention Shovel Knight?

Not trying that game for more than a few minutes is in and of itself a crime!

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My retort might have been full of digs, but the point is that bad game design is how bad games are made, not an art style. Tuffcub is entitled to his disgust for the art style as it isn’t for everyone, but maybe taking ourselves out of our comfort zone will occasionally turn up some great games. I for one dismissed Danganronpa as nothing more than another anime games before playing it, but I have since seen the error of my ways.

Give pixel art games a chance. One may just surprise you.