"There's Beauty in the Bits": The Elegance of Retro Graphics

     I have recently been playing through Chrono Trigger, for the first time in my life, over the past few weeks. While playing, I've reaffirmed a belief that I've held for a long time: The games of the 16-bit era were beautiful works of art. I don't care what Roger Ebert says. Chrono Trigger was released almost twenty years ago (1995), yet it's still one of the best looking games I've played, not to mention one of the best, and only, JRPGs (Japanese RPGs) that I have been able to tolerate. I'll go into further detail on that once I beat the game and do a retro review of it, but for now I want to focus on the beauty of the 16-bit era games.

Great scott! Look at all that detail! (Source)

     I've heard it said that we, as gamers, still love retro games because we've accepted them as an art form, among other things. I suppose that's true. Even by today's standards the older graphics are still quite solid, especially those of the 16-bit era. When I pop Mega Man X or A Link to the Past into the SNES, I still marvel at the graphics. It boggles my mind that such a small amount of pixels can be arranged in such a way to make dozens, if not hundreds, of sprites (pictures made of pixels to represent each position of movement) for various positions and movements. One of my all time favorite games, Age of Empires II, falls into this category. Although graphically inferior to the game engines of today, these 16-bit games can still be played quite easily, and are not a strain on the eyes.

THE DARK AGE OF GRAPHICS
     Speaking of a strain on the eyes, I'd like to take a moment to talk about what I consider the Dark Age of Graphics. When I look at N64 games, I can't help but wonder... How in the world did we ever think these graphics were beautiful? The entire world is made of polygons! Yes, I understand that most modern games are still made of polygons, but there are far more of them to go around. Here I am, playing Goldeneye, waving around what they say is a gun, shooting what are barely noticeable as bullets, at polygons that, if I stretch my imagination, are supposed to be people (admittedly, their faces are easily recognizable). I don't care what era you're from, 64-bit graphics are an eyesore. Alas, such games as Starfox 64 and Ocarina of Time are made of such bits...

The guy farthest right seems to be happy that he's been freed from his horrific, polygonal existence... (Source)

     One of the reasons I think we have an easier time processing the graphics of the 16-bit era is because we expect them to be cartoony and pixelated. Modern games try so hard to look real, and have become overly complex as a result. However, as we all know, "When you complicate things, things tend to go wrong." When playing one of those early polygon engine games, it's easy to get pulled out of the game because of the cringe-worthy graphics. Our eyes have been trained to look for realism, and when something doesn't fit right we notice it easily. I can stay immersed in a 16-bit game because I'm not constantly noticing how uneven the graphics engine is or how one part doesn't seem to fit. Our minds accept the graphics and we have a much easier time of assimilating them, rather than visually pointing out the obvious faults of the game engine.

A LOOK OF THEIR OWN
     16-bit games relied on an artistic flair, a look that was all their own. Chrono Trigger looks like Chrono Trigger, Mega Man looks like Mega Man, and A Link to the Past looks like A Link to the Past. Each game has its own unique color palette. "What!? But we have so many more options for colors nowadays!" Of course we do... as long as those colors are a shade of brown or gray. Although realistic, modern games look bleak and boring. Whoever made the games of the past were responsible for making up the world that we see from scratch, not merely copying the world that we see around us. Because of this, nothing looks out of place. We don't have a photo-realistic background with "nearly" realistic characters. And while there are a lot of games from the 64-bit era that do the same thing, I still can't bring myself to call those beautiful.

Although I spend most of my day outside, I'm still paler than the author of this blog... (Source)

     I know that there are many modern games that break this mold. Okami and Guild Wars 2 are a few that come to mind that are genuinely beautiful because of a vast array of colors and art styles. Another modern example that comes to mind is Minecraft. At first, I laughed at the game because of its graphics. The blockiness of it, the awful textures... everything about it made me cringe. Then I played it and realized that those graphic choices work for a game like that. The creator wasn't going for super realistic graphics; he built the game with its own look and feel. I can accept the graphics of Minecraft because they don't try to be something they can't be: real.

     In the end, this isn't a contest over which era's graphics are better or more beautiful, it becomes a plea to the mainstream masses to remember the "beauty in the bits". People these days can't get enough of their Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, or Battlefield. So much focus is placed on these dark, dank, colorless games that we forget the beauty of other video games. When I play Battlefield or Assassin's Creed, I don't even notice the scenery until it's blowing up or I need cover from enemy fire, whereas when I play A Link to the Past or Chrono Trigger, I notice the beautiful autumn trees and the abundance of colorful wildlife and enemies. These games teach us that graphics don't need to be top of the line in order to be beautiful.

They had some pretty sweet musical numbers too... (Source)

Bonus Level: I know this for a fact: 16-bit video games are beautiful. But are they art? Maybe... maybe not. Roger Ebert said they were not art. Then again, he died without ever actually playing a video game. You can't critique something unless you've experienced it, which I would think he of all people should have understood. His unwillingness to even try makes any point he wanted to make null and void. I'm sure that when movies started coming out, someone was there to say, "Movies aren't art!" He belittled that which he did not understand, which is becoming all too common with people of the older generations. They don't understand it, and so they despise it.