Badly drawn graphics in mid to late 80s arcade games

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psycopathicteen
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Badly drawn graphics in mid to late 80s arcade games

Post by psycopathicteen »

Does anybody find it amusing how a lot of arcade games from the mid to late 80s had badly drawn graphics compared to the arcade games released a couple years later?
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Post by ccovell »

Yes, has anyone ever noticed some Konami games like Contra, Super C, and Aliens have really really poor colour contrast? Did they have malfunctioning monitors or something?
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Post by Shiru »

Arcade C and Super C simply have such low contrast graphics by itself.
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Post by tepples »

Whenever capabilities increase, such as 1 to 3 to 15 colors or 8 to 16 to 32 pixels on a side, it sometimes takes a few years for art styles to adapt to the new capability. Compare Balloon Fight to Kirby's Adventure, for instance.
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Post by psycopathicteen »

Whenever capabilities increase, such as 1 to 3 to 15 colors or 8 to 16 to 32 pixels on a side, it sometimes takes a few years for art styles to adapt to the new capability. Compare Balloon Fight to Kirby's Adventure, for instance.
That is exactly what I was thinking. When it came time for the SNES and Sega Genesis, developers got used to dealing with higher color palettes so you didn't see the weird colors and bad contrast you saw on mid to late 80s arcade games.
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Re: Badly drawn graphics in mid to late 80s arcade games

Post by thefox »

psycopathicteen wrote:Does anybody find it amusing how a lot of arcade games from the mid to late 80s had badly drawn graphics compared to the arcade games released a couple years later?
Some examples (screenshots) would have been nice.
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RLError
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Post by RLError »

http://www.gamefaqs.com/arcade/568362-n ... den/images

Don't know what you're talking about, OP.
psycopathicteen
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Re: Badly drawn graphics in mid to late 80s arcade games

Post by psycopathicteen »

thefox wrote:
psycopathicteen wrote:Does anybody find it amusing how a lot of arcade games from the mid to late 80s had badly drawn graphics compared to the arcade games released a couple years later?
Some examples (screenshots) would have been nice.
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Post by mic_ »

Arrgh, not the Ninja Gaiden arcade game! That game is a disgrace to the franchise. It's even worse than the PC-Engine version.

Data East used to make some pretty ugly games in general (but they could still be fun to play). Except for Magical Drop III - which has pretty decent graphics - most of their games look like they hired children to draw their graphics. That's not to say that I can draw any better.. just that their graphics artists weren't any good.
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Post by TmEE »

I heard from a guy who did (arcade) games in the 80's that bright bland colros were supposedly catching people's attention more and publishers specifically asked games to have such crappy low contrast coloring.
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Post by Vorde »

mic_ wrote:Arrgh, not the Ninja Gaiden arcade game! That game is a disgrace to the franchise. It's even worse than the PC-Engine version.

Data East used to make some pretty ugly games in general (but they could still be fun to play). Except for Magical Drop III - which has pretty decent graphics - most of their games look like they hired children to draw their graphics. That's not to say that I can draw any better.. just that their graphics artists weren't any good.
Magical Drop III was a pretty decent game for its time, and had some pretty good artists in my opinion. Then again, it wasn't that early of a game so I guess it doesn't apply to this thread :P
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