Is it just nostalgia or is there something about early 00s graphics that just make them ooze with soul?

I genuinely refuse to believe anyone thinks this. The visual fidelity is often the result of outsourcing which is why you see so many technical problems in newer games. Likewise, clashing/unappealing artstyles with higher polygons have resulted in some of the most bland looking games despite the huge jumps in technical quality. It's absolutely jarring. Maybe you could have made this argument around 2015 but shit has been so bad lately.

>Likewise, clashing/unappealing artstyles with higher polygons have resulted in some of the most bland looking games despite the huge jumps in technical quality
You're just throwing monkey shit at the wall to see what'll land. "higher polygons" don't usually cause this. If we're talking about something like DQ11 or Trials of Mana it's often a lack of distinctive shading, rather than having a high amount of polygons. The failure of some to use potential does not take away from the fact that said potential's the highest it's ever been

Will we ever get something like them again or were they merely products of their time?

Attached: VtMB - The Asylum in the rain.webm (1280x720, 1.18M)

tho tbf
>the best mix of aesthetics and graphical fidelity of any generation.
did not mean
>every game has stylised aesthetics mixed with high graphical fidelity
it meant
>we have a higher mix of games aiming for different ratios of the two
and even if we look at shit like Red Dead 2 or Tsushima, the ones going for a "realistic" look are far more stylised than anything from the late ps2-early ps4 era that went for the same aesethetic.

>simple clean graphics
>no TAA/chromatic/film grain/piss filter/blue tint

Attached: GTA3 downtown atmosphere.jpg (3840x2160, 1.08M)

I don't think it's a universal thing for that generation. Games like The Getaway or True Crime: Streets of LA look comparatively soulless to when put against GTA 3, which was set apart by its vaguely cartoony character models, use of shading/lighting and the foggy, blue-tinted atmosphere. With a lot of modern games they seem too cookie cutter in how they're produced and fall back too much on shared assets or capturing real people/places with photography and motion capture.

Developers had to do the most while having the least at their disposal

You know remember the early 00s internet theories about Darkel.

I guess it could be done as a period piece, but that's always a bit different. Big cities today are simultaneously more sanitized and worse shitholes than they were then, as in being terrible in a quite different way.

God I loved this game

It's the time when games still looked "gamey" but the improvement over the PS1/N64 era was huge.

>With a lot of modern games they seem too cookie cutter in how they're produced and fall back too much on shared assets or capturing real people/places with photography
or they just hoped they didn't get caught
petapixel.com/2021/06/05/photographer-sues-capcom-for-12m-for-using-her-photos-in-video-games/

It's not over busy so they could actually focus on making games easy to see and fun to play. Lower fidelity graphics allow for more dev focus on things that matter, like systems design and level intricacy, rather than stuff that doesn't matter like polygons on horse manure piles.

It was easier to set up the mood for the world in a comic book kind of way, something that is kinda hard to do when the games is too realistic looking.

GTA3 is still unrivaled when it comes to capturing a city. Which is pretty crazy given that it was basically the game that pioneered this sort of open world.

Attached: GTA3 early morning rounds.webm (600x338, 2.59M)

I played this game for the first time in 2021 and it is incredibly soulful.

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>The vast spectrum of modern games have the best mix of aesthetics
Mental child

Nostalgia. Realistic 3D games looked like shit back then, only cartoon graphics worked with low poly. Realistic games reached the point of decency in 2004, with DOOM 3 and HL2.

Reddit opinion

Is this Mafia?