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Comment by jokoon | Hacker News Reader

I still wonder if the lowpoly/ps1graphic trend is real.

I believe making games "the old way" is so cheap because of today's tools, that it might be viable to make such games.

IMO, low poly was great because it engaged your imagination more. Especially horror games, your brain filled in the blanks better than most modern unreal engine horror romps.

It also opened the door to more stylistic choices. There's only one way to do realism - realistically. There's infinite ways to do low graphics. Maybe you do a Wind Waker type look, maybe you do a Binding of Isaac type look, maybe you do a Don't Starve type look. All wildly different aesthetics, but all pretty low-graphics.

This is part of the reason, I think, Nintendo games seem to have more soul. The consoles are limited and, in turn, Nintendo dedicates more effort to make their games look stylistically good. Mario Odyssey doesn't have great graphics, but it looks fantastic. Ditto for Breath of the Wild. Meanwhile, Concord, Battlefield, COD... they all kind of blend together.

Low Poly is a market signal for not-filled-with-microtranactions in addition to nostalgia. Plus, a tiny indie dev team who is passionate (not greedy) can do a coherent art design around low poly, whereas anything higher might 100x the work/budget required to make the game look like it's not a salad of random disjointed asset packs.

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