The Nintendo Switch's Subtle Drawback: Modern Games Lack Vibrant Colors
Вставка
- Опубліковано 1 лип 2024
- Hey man.. I like color. Color is nice. Can we atleast get some more of it back from the company that use to do it best?
Edited by: @Bloops
Additional Art from: @OfficiallyTCK
Twitter? Instagram? Main Channel? Twitch? PATREON?! - linktr.ee/boundarybreak
Discord! discord.gg/boundarybreak
#nintendoswitch #nintendo #nintendogamecube
Commenting corrections, constructive criticism, and even rude comments of the content is accepted. However posting incorrect corrections or generally promoting misinformation will be removed.
You know, kinda funny to think about how Mario's reds are muted in most of the Switch games during the console generation where Nintendo made the striking, vibrant red part of their logo, trademarked and all.
Oh man I've been trying to say this to people for quite a while now and they just look at me like I have 10 eyeballs or something😂
This desaturation is an attempt at naturalistic focus management. With greater detail and greater shader capabilities on the hardware, it becomes important to fade things out in the background and that aren’t immediately relevant to the player. The alternative is an image that is too busy to parse. Those older games weren’t actually more saturated - they were being played on worse displays that appeared washed out, which is why they turned the saturation up so much.
The art style for some 6th gen GC games were so good that they don't even look like they came out during that generation. They had much lower texture quality than 7th gen consoles had but the cartoony style helped make up the simplistic textures, while showing amazing LOD render distance and nice looking models/lighting.
Agree with you Shesez. This may not be the most important moment for video games in my life, it is undeniable that the Switch has been the biggest. I have collected 100+ physical games for this console which is well beyond any of my others and even has the benefit of them all being games that I love.
Dude yessss. It's not just Nintendo either, it's a lot of media in general. Like, even in movies, there was a huge push towards things looking flatter and more realistic throughout the 2010s and it's such a shame. I love me some bold colors because of how much mileage filmmakers (and game designers to at least *try* to be on topic) can get out of them. I'd rather have a creative application of 10 shades of red versus 1000 if the 10 looks more creative, you know? It's part of why I love movies done in technicolor and retro graphics. The color choices are just clever ways to get around the technology.
I didn't notice until this video about the desaturated colors and I got to say I do agree
I hate how gray everything is at the end of the day in BotW and TotK, and the excessive use of fog is something that I hate even more. I hated being in a cave in TotK and not being able to see what was 10 feet ahead of me because of fog and everything being basically the same color
I always thought about this with Breath of The Wild and Tears of The Kingdom. Then, one day I tried ToTK on **redacted** and messed with some ReShade settings and... bam! The game looks GOURGEOUS without this effect.
It feels like they just put a white filter over the game, similar to how games in the late 2000s had the piss yellow/green filter. Now it's the white, foggy filter.
I call it the Vaseline Filter, since it looks like someone smeared vaseline on the camera. It's a problem across almost all modern games. Everything becomes grey and flat and washed out and boring, and it's primarily because of post-processing effects. Devs will slap on effect after effect, which eventually starts obscuring detail and giving an ugly visual aesthetic. Jurassic Park had it right: they were so wrapped up in "can we", they didn't stop to ask "should we"; and the answer should be no, no you should not keep slapping more crap onto the screen. Less is more.
It’s funny because I thought breath of the wild looked pretty good being desaturated, as it fit the mood of the game. But in tears of the kingdom it felt so odd and out of place how muted the colors were given the game’s tone and mood. I think there was a huge missed opportunity to ramp up the colors a bit in that game to make it look a little different from its predecessor.
I really noticed this in smash ultimate. Characters like Mario and Kazooie look almost pink at times.
I think you lost me a bit with Mario Wonder as an example. That game to me offers the perfect middle ground between Nintendo's current approach and what you're asking for, and I wouldn't change a thing about it. I agree that in some of Nintendo's most ambitious titles, like the two Zeldas and Mario Odyssey, the bloom is cranked up too high, and it leads to certain situations appearing quite over exposed. But I also have to wonder how much of that is being used to cover some tech limitations. I don't know, I'm not a tech guy. Also I have to wonder if it depends on what kind of display you're using? Because Mario Wonder looks freaking amazing - super bold and vivid - on an OLED TV. I don't think there was as much variance in displays back then.
totally agree. love it when Nintendo games have colors that pop
It's interesting you point out the color on Switch games. I thought it was my TV originally, but I guess it was the console. I actually had to dial up the saturation on my TV when playing the Switch on there because the colors looked so muted, especially on Breath of the Wild. It was very confusing, because I was expecting this bright, brilliantly colorful game from all the ads and marketing I saw, but it didn't look the same on my TV.
I personally think mario wonder is one of the more saturated games I’ve seen in recent years. I do think that even back in the gamecube days some games tried to be ”realistic”. Like for example smash bros and luigi’s mansion. But yeah it’s a bit more apparent now. But at the same time there will still be games such as the zelda 2d remakes which have a fairly colorful look.
you're absolutely NOT alone. I'm with you 100% on all your points.
it's one of the many reasons why BotW and TotK both felt lacking for me, along with many many other reasons, but the color pallets feeling lacking is definitely one very notable one imo. i feel it less with some other games, but its undeniably there as well and yeah it would be nice to see a more eye catching pallet, especially if they're not going to have the hardware that supports PS5/PC levels of performance.
its a missed opportunity not to capitalize on visual flair when visual fidelity isn't in their ammunition.
the extra vibrancy of the images on screen could go a long way into making games hold people's attention. i have a strong attention span and found myself not caring about Zelda's environments in the latest games due to it being a plain looking fields no matter where you go with little to nothing that felt eye catching.
I always knew there was something off about the way modern games looked but could never place a reason on it. This must be it! Great observational skills there Derrick. I also prefer the older games more vibrant and bold colors and environments.
i totally get you man, i'd been thinking about this for a few years. i definitely think the softer approach with more gradients has its place, but i also love the sheer visual clarity of bright, solid colors. like, i find it unfortunate that people seem to find luigi's mansion 2 hd underwhelming cause of its visuals, since that visual simplicity is just so easy to read at a glance. my vision also gets fairly blurry at night to the point that smaller graphical elements tend to get seen double and blurred beyond understanding, so having simple, clear visuals focused far more on the big picture than the details really helps me out
haven't watched the video yet but the title is absolutely phenomenal. i can't explain it. it's catchy without being clickbait. delightful and refreshing. excellent
Probably one of the only people watching this who doesn't own a Switch. I've always thought the same thing about the Wind Waker remaster. The colors/palettes/lighting feels so inferior to the original and that was one of my favorite parts about the game.
It's the indiscriminate use of the Physically Based Rendering (PBR) model for shaders. The goal of PBR is to create realistic looking materials by simulating how light interacts with materials in the real world. Though each game has a slightly different implementation of the PBR shading model, they all follow the same principles. Things like specularity, conservation of energy, etc. are taken into account, and as a result, it causes materials in games to appear less saturated, since they're reacting to light in a more nuanced and detailed fashion than say the 6th generation of consoles. Those used incredibly simplistic shader models such as the lambertian diffuse model, which only takes into account whether a surface is in light or shadow, and nothing more.
I thought for awhile that I was the only one who noticed or cared, so thanks for this! The worst casualty for me has gotta be Smash Ultimate. The characters just don't feel as colorfully represented as they should be, and it hurts knowing that Smash U "Ultimately" did it better.
Every modern game now seems to have this smeared and desaturated approach to color that makes the visuals feel almost distant. No idea how things got this way, but I truly don't understand it. Bring back bombastic, bold colors!
It's funny you brought up BotW and TotK too, because I distinctly remembered being disappointed about the lack of vibrant color when BotW came out. It's artistically my favorite game in recent memory, and it deserved to have an insanely evocative and memorable vibrancy of color...but nope, just looks distant. This could be suggested to go along with the story's focus on the past, but I still would've preferred an outright bright and bold world. Age of Calamity does this, and it compliments the art direction gorgeously. I believe this was even a point of conversation back then, with some fans wanting change. Of course, TotK came out, and it followed the same pattern.
For a long, long time, color contrast was important on film so that if it ends up on a black-and-white TV, it would still be readable. These days, you'd be lucky to see anything with all the tones blending together, especially on a black-and-white TV.
Also, a lot of games were made specifically for CRT screens, like Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess, where they intentionally had a grayscale test screen so you could see it properly. Doesn't do much with modern displays, though, besides acknowledge there was an issue. That's why a lot of remakes are a little brighter than their CRT-based originals.
I watched this and then rewatched the Mario and Luigi Brothership trailer. It's got a similar hazy look rather than those bold deep colors. At least to me.
this is a perfect explanation on what has felt off for these games to me. i wondered, but thats it. they all use
a real lighting engine now. and with the sports games feeling a bit half-assed, this explains how they
managed to LOOK so sterile as well.
Died: 2004
Born: 2017
Welcome back GBA washed out colors.
Overall i’m mixed on this. I think it works great for BotW and TotK’s styles because they are trying to be a bit more grounded and realistic looking compared to WW. If everything was so bright and vibrant the world wouldn’t really feel like it almost died. However for games like Mario Wonder I think I agree with you. Maybe we could have a filter that makes the games look more bright especially for a game like Smash Ultimate.
Mario Party Superstars might be the best looking Mario game on Switch and I think the color choices have a lot to do with that. Might not be entirely as saturated as it could be, but damn do the colors pop.
I suppose that'd be an appropriate direction to take given that it's a party game.
I definitely agree. I remember noticing it first with Mario Kart 8. I’m always shocked to hear people talk about how beautiful BotW/TotK are because they’re so horrendously dusty. A little added contrast on Cemu does a body good.
The weird thing too is so much of this can be fixed with post-processing where you can change the color and saturation of shadows, midtones, and highlights - aswell as adjust the general contrast and gamma in quite literally a few seconds, so it's definitely very intentionally washed out looking.
I can get your stance with the colorful nature of previous generations comparing to current generation. Even so, I must play Devil's Advocate here and say that the art styles and directions for Nintendo Switch's era are FINE. I can tell that Nintendo is going for TACTILE nature in their games, which would leads to decrease in color's tone and intensity and in turn, gains more of visual clarity and feedback between the players and games as well as amplifying bit more of realism in their games. And there's still some cartoony natures in the games, just that there's middle ground between cartoony and realism and I think Nintendo did good job toeing the line here.
So, is it possible to have colorful games while retaining these realistic senses? I believe so, yes. Look at Metroid Prime Trilogy or some older Legend of Zelda games. Even so, trying to meld colorful nature with tactile sensibility of environments for modern games would be quite challenging, though I am sure that Nintendo might try to aim that for Nintendo Switch Successor's lineup.
Great video!
there are many reasons I love the DS aesthetic and this is one.
You got a point. I don't think the new games are terrible but i do miss those bolder colors. I also get why they don't do it. All the better when they eventually bring it back
Indie game dev here, I gotta pop in here about why we've moved away from heavily saturated palettes and why it's a good thing and a very sensible design decision. It's not an issue with the Switch's performance or capability, though I want to quickly mention before anything that the graphics pipeline of any Switch game very likely boosts the gamma of the image, resulting in a "brighter" image for the explicit purpose of being easier to see on a handheld screen, and boosting gamma will lead to a more desaturated appearance. That being said, highly saturated textures do not light well in even simple lighting engines, as colors quickly become blown out, leading to 3D objects looking flat. Apart from that, however, is the important consideration that as games become more complex in their presentation, reserving more highly-saturated colors to draw the eye to things that should be more in focus is a huge asset to game designers, and frankly a highly saturated image overall is pretty fatiguing and disorienting to the eye, and an unnecessary creative limitation on artists. All of that aside, there is nothing about modern hardware that prevents displaying a heavily saturated display. Any game on Switch or otherwise could very easily run through a shader to saturate the image output to the extreme (and without clipping), but I think most developers and designers would agree that this destroys any nuance and dynamic value to the colors chosen by the artists who create these carefully-crafted worlds.
Now, a developer could ABSOLUTELY design a modern game using exclusively vivid and neon colors, and use those colors in a way that could look very appealing, but it seems like a pain in the ass to look good, and not like an old Microsoft Paint drawing. We also live in an age with modern displays that almost guaranteed will have built-in options to boost saturation to the max.
The game I am currently developing does have internal options for Gamma, and now thanks to this video, I'm considering including a saturation option as well, because hey, why not. It would take under an hour to fully implement.
Totk going in a cave was like it was hard to see because of how dark and similar toned the game looked. Underground areas in that game sucked
Yesssssss! Thank you
I agree, Smash 4 looked miles better than Ultimate because of this. Everything in Ultimate looks so pale and dull, you can even use Pikachu as an example as you did in this video.
We need a new real 2d Mario and I would even like a 3d platformer Mario and Mario kart in the style of paper mario
The thing missing from Mario bros wonder is an amazing bowser boss fight. The one we ended up with was disappointing ngl
The muted baby toys is actually detrimental to their development!!
I think Paper Mario is a good example of the bold colors, as was the RPG remake you're right!!
Another example I've seen is, ironically, OG Halo versus newer ones/remakes. The bad guys blend in, it's not as vivid.
Not really noticed it, can’t unsee it now!
I think Nintendo has moved away from true 2D. The only time do 2D is in direct reference to a retro atheistic. Mario Maker is a good example of this. They haven't really made a 2D game in a while, and there is a lot of reason why, sprites need a lot more work than modern 3D models. You can cheat a bit more with models, but with sprites it is a bit harder. Capcom recycled Morrigan's sprite through multiple 2D crossover fighters, adjusting the colors of needed. They are moving away from single bold colors to gradients. Look at TMS #FE, that is a very bold color game, but also having gradients.
I have noticed this since getting Super Mario Odyssey in 2017.
Games on the Switch seem to favor muted colors and more realistic, immersive environments. Most players look to prefer that style.
Personally, I'm a staunch defender of bold colors. Super Mario 3D World, for example, has an incredibly bold, colorful aesthetic. I love it!
Another example is Super Smash Bros.; Ultimate is a good balance of color and detail, but frankly I prefer the colorful look of Smash 4. Characters from series like Mario, Kirby, Pokémon, Sonic, Pac-Man, and Duck Hunt fit like a glove in Smash 4's aesthetic. This is a big reason why it's my favorite Smash game.
You touched on Super Mario Bros. Wonder. While I dig the refreshing graphics, Mario U was admittedly more colorful.
Interesting topic, Shesez.
Gamecube is peak.
Always has been, always will be.
is the name "shesez" a blink 182 reference?
Damn, i hadnt even realized this but you're so right. Personally, the natural lighting is a lot easier on my eyes, which makes it more accesible for people like me who get migraines from a lot of games, BUT I think it should be optional somehow?? I dont have any ideas lol
I bet this is just a phase that will pass, we've nearly reached fully realistic video game visuals so I'm sure people will get bored of it and want crazy bold colors and cartoony stylized visuals again
i've noticed this overly-bright look in modern pokemon games before, but i didn't realize how common this really is. Now that I think about it, I have been wanting a zelda game with darker lighting and bolder colors like in twilight princess, but i guess that was never gonna happen on the switch.
You kidding me? Twilight princess has the worst, muddy shit-brown lighting covering anything that could remotely be described as "color"
@@sleepdeep305 looking at footage of the game again, yeah youre kinda right. I still love the look of that game, but the colors arent as bold as i remember
Agree 100%
links awakening and echoes of wisdom thats coming out are kinda saturated as well
I kinda don’t agree at all, I prefer realistic lighting on cartoon characters in Nintendo games. I mean I also play on Switch Oled so maybe I’m just used to the different colours, but I feel like a lot of switch games have a nice brightness to their colours that I feel when you showed screenshots of the older games, they looked like they were trying to mimic real light, but looked a little dim, whereas the stuff now is colourful and doesn’t really have that dimness. One of the best looking switch games imo is Metroid Dread, it ya lots of darkness but it makes the rest of the game pop out with its colours
I never noticed but dang you are right. Might be worth having a discussion with Daniel of GVG on the matter since he might have good insight
Mario Wonder looks so faded I can't even bring myself to play it. Nintendo is losing my purchases just because of the washed out colors.
You're right, but now I'm probably never going to not notice. Dammit, ignorance was bliss. 😜
I see life and vibrant colors in the plenty of games like Luigi’s Mansion 3 which also has its darks settings. We are fine.
Personally I think if you paint everything with the most vibrant colors and darkest blacks it ends up looking flat. Lighting effects like fog might make a scene look more muted overall, but allows for things in the foreground to stand out and appear *relatively* vibrant.
Yeah, I think Tears, possibly Wild too, was when I reached the opinion you did. Those two games are amazing but it just bugs me their coloring is the way it is.
I don't think it's the lighting really and more with how the image gets put out through the console. From what I understand the game engines and even the switch itself isn't capable of producing or struggles to produce a large/rich color range.
This is why I think any switch 2 needs HDR over 4k.
This problem was even more prevalent on the Wii U, as that had limited range HDMI
You might be onto something. I'm super excited for DokeV, have you seen that game? Super bright colours everywhere. It proves you can have realistic lighting and effects without skimping on the colour.
HD + Realistic shadows and high frame rates make most games look worse and visually exhausting
Its mostly photorealism, I don't think high framerates have any negatives.
@@zachariah74 tell that to everyone that saw the hobbit movie in 60fps
@@trapez77 Sure it's weird for films but in the context of games i have zero complaints
@@zachariah74 I have complaints
In my opinion things declined starting with the Wii for select series. Coming from Mario 64 and Sunshine I find Mario Galaxy and on looks ugly and garish, gross colors and over stylized, like when a photoshop n00b just adds too much. Lighting and feel looks almost like some default unity or unreal settings. BOTW and such still looks great, although I will say the ambient occlusion around the character is a bit obvious at times, especially when watching gameplay.
I think the vibrant colors look worse. I hate how saturated sunshine is, i love more mellow colors
I feel like this is fine with games like breath of the wild. But… I still feel like Mario games should have bolder colours!
I agree with you, but I really haven't kept up with modern gaming other damn Mario kart or Smash Brothers. I only know about it because I follow UA-cam was like you as podcast / background material. And I just feel isolated, like I'm a part of a gaming communinity Who doesn't exist because I'm exclusively playing games released in the '90s-2000's. I have Night Dive studios to thank for that lol
I think Arceus better lives up to what you're requesting than S/V.
PLA is closer to something like TWW, whereas S/V is blant like you describe.
I actually kind of agree. I love the original Thousand Year Door aesthetically and I thought I'd like how the remake would look but it just somehow fails to hit that same high level for me. And I really think it's the vibrancy of the colors in the original that stands out more.
I kind of see where you're going... not wiith every example, but okay.
Also, since everybody percieves colour a bit different...
But I don't know - I never saw it like that or saw it as a negative since Nintendo games, in comparison to other games, still seem to be the COLOURFUL games... 😅
Eat mario
Virtually every game on the Switch is good DESPITE the system and not because of it
Calling switch games an attempt at looking realistic.
Wha
wut? lol
I wanna see more games like the legend of dragoon