Isometric 2D Art Appreciation Thread

[helpimarock]

This guy has all of the backgrounds from Baldur's Gate 2 and the Icewind Dale games. http://neurotech.imgur.com/

They still look great, especially the ice.

 

[marooned]

Nice find.

IWD games backgrounds look so great. Much better than BG ones.

 

[Kirtai]

It can cause crashes in a couple of locations with extremely high resolutions.

Never crashed for me, because I was already using fix-pack and other goodies hosted at Spellhold from start.

It only affects a couple of spots like the art gallery at very high resolutions like 1680x1050+

 

[A user named cat]

I was just thinking of these obscure games I played years back. Don't even remember if they were any good but they looked nice.


Kult: Heretic Kingdoms

Gorasul: Legacy of the Dragon

 

[Kahlis]

 

[GueulEclator]

I will try to find other, more interesting places, but this was the only one with decent quality i could find (in a 30 second google search). I my mind there is also trademeet, draconis lair, and the interior of the elven palace.

 

[GueulEclator]

YES, I was able to find a good one from Trademeet. I really liked this city, I was a random location, not relevant to the plot, but it's design and architecture were really interesting. I would say it was flawlessly merchant at it's core. It really reminded me of those wealthy merchant city from the medieval age, with a fantasy twist. The rooftops, the pavement... I appreciate when fantasy game goes into this kind of authentic feeling.

 

[Dexter]

Spoiler

Albion would be so much better if BB hadn't done first person sequences.

Unfortunately it was more like 2D-sequences, because the largest part of the game was in 3D, I would have liked the game a lot more if it was fully 2D. xD

That makes me question why devs and publishers keep trying to move to digital if something like that is the case. Unless that is done to encourage folks to make purchases they don't need to make.

But anyway, of the isometric RPGs I've played, Divine Divinity and Inquisitor have some of the better art and depicted worlds I've seen.

Publishers get around ~30% from Retail Sales (there is no self-publishing from developers to speak of, since Retailers won't carry those), they get around ~70% from Digital Sales (and developers can self-publish too) making a Digital Sale over 2x more worth than a Retail one. On a publishers/developers own platform like Steam/Origin/GoG they get up to 90% of the total cost of a game, so a copy bought there is worth about 3 Retail copies.
Games at 50-70% Off are usually making them the same Winnings Retail copies would. Why they don't release them at that price from the start should be obvious. They can make more money off of early buyers when they pay more and Retailers still have enough Market strength to make it hurt if they penalize them for it (by for instance not carrying their games).
There's some publishers like Paradox though, that didn't have a strong Retail presence to start with and can tell them to fuck themselves, since over 90% of their earnings is from Digital Sales.

 

[GueulEclator]

OH Yeah! Glad I found it. These are one of the finest floor textures I've seen. It's not just shiny colors and random polygonal shapes like in those new shitty games.
It's the whole intricate design and the feeling that they're from one of those artwork of old. Sculptures, Pottery, fresco... Kind of remind me of the old soundtrack for the Heroes of might and magic games. Nobody forced them to do it that way, yet they did it that way, that's the old passionate teams for you.

Because I'm not just a Baldurfag, but also Tormentfag :

 

[General Maxson]

Wow, this thread is great! It makes me drool real nice.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Kult: Heretic Kingdoms looks nice. Anyone mind sharing their experience with the game?

 

[A user named cat]

Seems so long ago when I tried it but I do remember some things. Mainly it was a Diablo clone but it had a gimmick where you could also switch to a spirit world, in order to speak some dead NPC's but you'd have to fight off spiritual baddies too. I think it was okay but a little dull, due to being just another hack 'n' slashy Diablo clone and a low budget one at that. I may be remembering wrong.

Played so many damn ARPG clones when they were coming out by the dozens back then. Others like Throne of Darkness, Silverfall, Legend - Hand of God and Anito: Defend a Land Enraged come to mind as well, plus countless others I'm forgetting. I'm sure many of them had nice looking 2D art too but they were all so samey that it's not worth bothering to play them. The only one in the category that really ever stood out was Divine Divinity.

 

[Wizfall]

I love this thread.

 

[GueulEclator]

Is this thread limited to RPG? Because I've got a whole bunch of 2D isometric eye candies from strategy games.


Meanwhile : from the RPG Golden Land :

More info on here : http://worthplaying.com/article/2004/6/21/previews/17616/

 

[Kem0sabe]

Is this thread limited to RPG? Because I've got a whole bunch of 2D isometric eye candies from strategy games.


Meanwhile : from the RPG Golden Land :

More info on here : http://worthplaying.com/article/2004/6/21/previews/17616/

Was that ever released? Looks interesting.

Oh, and people have posted a bunch of screens from Commandos, Desperados, Robin Hood, etc, go ahead and post amazing 2D level art that you enjoy... that´s what it´s all about.

 

[mondblut]

OH Yeah! Glad I found it. These are one of the finest floor textures I've seen.

If this is your idea of "floor texture", uh...

 

[GueulEclator]

OH Yeah! Glad I found it. These are one of the finest floor textures I've seen.

If this is your idea of "floor texture", uh...

You aren't making any point at all.
This is some pretty furniture here. Unless you haven't noticed, nice artwork isn't limited to Floor in a video game.
So the fact that furnitures can have pretty design shaped onto them invalidates the artwork I posted?
In fact, it only reinforce what I said : when a video game background reach the level of other forms of more ''classical'' art then that means that the design department made a good job.

 

[FeelTheRads]

The point is that floor texture looked more like a furniture texture than a floor texture.

Sticking something "classic" on random stuff doesn't necessarily make it better.

 

[suejak]

Looks pretty good as furniture and a floor.

 

[GueulEclator]

Looks pretty good as furniture and a floor.

Yes basically what I was trying to mean. But i suck at writing short sentence.
Lets keep it to the images with some small description, I will avoid polemic descriptions if that helps.

Meanwhile, more from golden Land RPG :

Am I the only one that thinks it looks very pretty?

I really like the snow one. It looks very authentic. Russian/east european tend to make good concepts, but their game end up being plagued by inconsistencies and bug. They are what one can call flawed gems.


Was golden land ever discussed here?

 

[GueulEclator]

MOAR Gorasul, Legacy of the dragon :

I like the squeleton crowd concept. For some reason. Reminds me of the old cartoons where the adventurers would end up in the land of the wicked, inhabited by evil creatures that go on having their daily lives.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Are those from the same game? They have different UIs. Any English release?

Edit: Talking about the Golden Land screenshots.

 

[GueulEclator]

Indeed, I'm not sure. Have you red the link I posted? I didnt bothered too much, so maybe they say something.

 

[Dexter]

Rescuing some stuff from some of the other threads xD

Icewind Dale - Wyrm's Tooth:

Fallout:

Planescape: Torment:

Baldur's Gate 2:

Robin Hood - The Legend of Sherwood:

Also, even though it's not an RPG and not yet out, STASIS:

And another upcoming one, The Banner Saga:

 

[GueulEclator]

You're a hero dude! Nice rescue here. Do you mind writing a few names above these images. I have no clue for some of them (i did recognize baldur's, fallout and banner saga).