It's Critter Time!

What games do you consider not pretty

Not having "good graphics"

But **Beautiful**

I have a couple I can think of.

Ikaruga.

I have not seen a game that integrates the visuals, the action, and the music to *THIS DEGREE*

It is Beautiful to Observe. It is a joy to play. It is so frustrating to NOT perform to its requirement.
Gorgeous experience.

Okami is also one I consider beautiful. It is Too Much Game but goddamn what a good experience. I wish it was half its length.

Trials of Mana (SNES) and Chrono Trigger both stick out to me as games with an amazing visual style. Such amazing pixel art.

https://lina.gay/misc/wipeout3s.mp4

Wipeout 3

Less fun to post about answers: Kirby's Adventure (Hoshi no Kirby), F-Zero GX maybe but that's kind of leaning on good graphics. I really like the original Warioware's style. Animal Crossing Wild World is a very beautiful game to me but perhaps that's just nostalgia. Metal Slug (again perhaps that's just graphics), Batsugun.

GRIS

Artistic direction and musical direction takes it wordlessly to a point it has me on tears.

Even the second time when I watched someone else play it did it make me cry.

I dunno, there's just something about it

So I'm gonna make some weird picks here, but hear me out. These aren't games I'd say are beautiful all the way through, necessarily, more that they have moments that really stuck with me. I hope that's within the spirit of things!



Giana Sisters DS, or Giana Sisters 2D as it's called on its Steam port. It's a pretty all right looking game for the most part, nothing special. Spritework's pretty good. But when I played this, at this point, there was just something that really resonated with me and this particular 'level theme'. It might have been the rain, it might have been the music, but there's something so deeply atmospheric, almost calming, about how it all comes together that it's never quite left my head.



Second is everybody's favorite Saturn game, Mr. Bones. Once again, it looks fine for its time, most of the game. But something about this particular level -- just this constant series of jumps in front of the void, no enemies, no distractions. All while you listen to listen to actual blues musician Ronny Montrose explain his philosophy on the blues and life itself. It's such a quiet, beautiful moment in what's usually such a dumb, often frustrating game that I'd almost call it transcendant.

I think a lot about That Game Company's titles, even before they became a company, as being very artistically pleasant: Cloud (their student project), flOw (in its own two-dimensional-ish way), Flower, Journey, and Sky: Children of the Light are all very pretty to look at and listen to (though I really wish they rolled back or let you opt out of Sky's allowing 9+~1,000+ generic low-poly models that they implemented ever since their Season of AURORA collab concert- it's pretty during the concert, maybe, but it's obnoxious visual clutter to me everywhere else in my opinion).

Rez is artistically complicated for me to talk about: I enjoy it as a visualizer or as a viewer, but as a player I'm overwhelmed a lot of the time in a similar way I am by many shoot-'em-ups. It's pretty interesting in its one of few non-rhythm games I feel where the soundtrack's pleasantness-to-listen-to depends directly on player skill: The game can be surprisingly quiet or sound choppy-ish if you're not locking onto everything you can. 'sweird.