These Games Opened Doors to the Most Unique Visuals Ever Seen

Video game visuals are becoming more and more photorealistic by the day. Anyone who played Spider-Man 2 can swear by Insomniac Games’ ability to design an insanely realistic New York City. And if that was not enough, Remedy Entertainment took things even further with Alan Wake 2. This survival horror game featured the best implementation of ray-tracing and path-tracing ever seen in gaming.

But is this all gamers should expect? Photorealistic and grounded visuals might look mind-blowing, but they don’t last. There would always be a game that would take things a step further and make the previous games obsolete. To make games and their visuals memorable, developers need to give the theme a unique look. Here are 6 examples of games that ended up being memorable despite being years old.

Okami

Clover Studio and Capcom brought this game to many PlayStation 2 gamers. Some never saw the appeal of this unique game, but those who decided to give it a chance were in for a treat. Okami is a Zelda-like title that features a wolf called Amaterasu. Visually, it looked like a mix of watercolor style and a cel-shaded comic in action.

As players explored those painstakingly detailed environments, solving puzzles and defeating enemies, it was hard to ignore their beauty. This is what makes this game so timeless. Eventually, it made its way to the Wii, PS3, PS4, PC, Xbox consoles, and Nintendo Switch.

Superhot

Sometimes games are lauded for being different-looking; other times, people praise them for being hyper-realistic. Superhot was in a completely different category. Years ago, when people used to play some heavy games on their low-spec PCs, they saw texture pop in. This meant characters and environments would load but without textures. That’s what Superhot looks like, but more polished.

It’s a very fast-paced puzzle shooter, and it is set in a computer program, so it makes sense for developers to make it look like this. This game that is literally built on naked polygons is super fun to play and looks pretty unique, no matter what platform you play it on.

Limbo

Playdead is a brave developer. First, they decided to create a game where characters are stuck in a dark limbo. Then they made it look as creepy as a very low-budget 2D platformer can look. But don’t take its minimalistic silhouette-like visuals for granted. They have plenty of details when looked at closely.

It’s a fun game while it lasts, and its puzzles will make you scratch your head more than once. But its visuals would haunt its players for a very long time, and that’s why this game is on this list.

Yoshi’s Crafted World

This game is unique in many ways. For starters, it’s the first Nintendo first-party game to use Unreal Engine 4. That was also one of the few times when Nintendo actually used a third-party game engine for their game. And they used it pretty well, for sure. Nintendo actually came up with the idea of putting Yoshi in a world completely built out of cardboard. It’s not your typical 2D platformer either; players can knock down cardboard structures in the background, change tracks, and find secrets hidden around the levels.

This game looks unique, and thanks to Nintendo’s clever use of its engine, it is full to the brim with interactive elements.

Octopath Traveler

For a very long time, Square Enix just kept on suggesting that people do not want turn-based RPGs anymore. With this, they did away with those classic, pixelated role-playing games. When Nintendo announced their new hybrid console Switch, both companies joined hands to reveal Octopath Traveler to the world. This game brought back nostalgia with its visuals and Yasunori Nishiki’s music.

Developer Square Enix Business Division 11 used Unreal Engine 4 in a unique manner. Featuring 2D character models in a 3D world with pixelated textures applied to them, they even gave this visual style a name, HD-2D. And whenever god rays were seen traveling through the trees in this world, they made everything better tenfold.

Don’t Starve

Klei Entertainment is a one-of-a-kind video game developer. They have been making unique experiences for their fans for the longest time. Games like Shank, Mark of the Ninja, and Oxygen Not Included are some of their best-known games. But Don’t Starve is the game that deserves to be on this list. A survival game with characters that look like paper cutouts. And art style that looks like something right out of a Tim Burton movie.

Over that, this game has the kind of world-building and gameplay that would keep pulling players back. If someone ever tries to get into it, they would go in for the visuals and stay for the gameplay; that’s how good Don’t Starve is.

Read More: Top 10 Classic Nintendo Games That Would Still Beat the Next Gen

Yes, these games would never sell millions of copies like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 did, nor do they belong to a sure-shot hit franchise such as The Legend of Zelda. Still, they would be remembered for something that is seldom seen in this industry, where the pursuit of realism is making games seem more and more generic.

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