Best Looking PS2 Games

[Jambhala]

What do you think is the best looking PS2 game?

I'd have to say Genji - Dawn of the Samurai, it's incredibly detailed and everything is modeled and textured perfectly to fit the overall theme.

 

[RanmyakuIchi's iconRanmyakuIchi]

Metal Gear Solid 3 is quite the looker still

 

[Jambhala]

Metal Gear Solid 3 is quite the looker still

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So true, the environments in mgs3 are very immersive which feels pretty uncommon for the era

 

[Jediuser]

Tough one.....

I'd probably go with Okami. Even today, it's art design is absolutely gorgeous, one of my favorites of any video game.

 

[RustySK]

Silent Hill 3's lighting, face models and facial animations are still amazing to me.

Another candidate would definitely be Shadow of the Colossus. Sparse as they may be, the environments feel so damn grand and the animations do such a great job at conveying weight and presence that the overall impression ends up super engrossing.

 

[Mopeybloke]

Okami.
This video contains some direct PS2 capture from Digital Foundry.

 

[SpcDaicon]

I would say, in terms of background art, Valkyrie Profile 2 was the best.

Final Fantasy X-2 and Kingdom Hearts 2 in the character animatio department

 

[Barriel]

Gran Turismo 4, still great and beautiful today

 

[Moreno909]

Black, the FPS game

 

[RuckusMcGuckus]

As much as Kingdom Hearts gets clowned on, I think they're some of the best looking games on PS2

 

[sun0wl]

I'll echo the mention of SotC and add Ico:

It's hard to top these games, but my unequivocable #1 due to its sheer breadth and depth of beauty is still Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria--

In some cases, if I didn't know better, I'd say Silmeria looked like a PS3 game. Not just because it pushed the limits of the hardware technically, but Square/Tri-Ace just hit a gd aesthetic grand-slam with this game. It's just plain gorgeous, and is one of the few games from the era that has aged well (remarkably so, IMO). Perhaps this is because--like Ico and SotC--the devs chose a stylized art direction over attempting photo-realism (on the PS2, LMAO were we ever that young??).

Shit on that note, I gotta mention the obvious as well:

FFX, another grand-slam of technical wizardry and human imagination.

 

[OPT1MUS]

I agree about Genji, and also about Okami (great piece of art).
Plus, for me

DMC, Ico and SotC, Onimusha, FFX, MGS3, Primal...
Well, there would be many more

 

[Jambhala]

Gran Turismo 4, still great and beautiful today

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Who doesn't love some Boxer's Spirit runs lol

Post automatically merged: Monday at 10:54 PM

I'll echo the mention of SotC and add Ico:
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It's hard to top these games, but my unequivocable #1 due to its sheer breadth and depth of beauty is still Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria--

View attachment 51824
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In some cases, if I didn't know better, I'd say Silmeria looked like a PS3 game. Not just because it pushed the limits of the hardware technically, but Square/Tri-Ace just hit a gd aesthetic grand-slam with this game. It's just plain gorgeous, and is one of the few games from the era that has aged well (remarkably so, IMO). Perhaps this is because--like Ico and SotC--the devs chose a stylized art direction over attempting photo-realism (on the PS2, LMAO were we ever that young??).

Shit on that note, I gotta mention the obvious as well:
View attachment 51837
FFX, another grand-slam of technical wizardry and human imagination.

I've never heard of that Valkyrie game before, it looks great. The amount of detail they fit into ps2 games is incredible sometimes.

 

[Frickinfrik]

Jak 3, God of War and God of War 2 still look good to this day!

 

[Jediuser]

Gran Turismo 4, still great and beautiful today

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GT4 was another one I considered.

In terms of photorealism, I'd put GT4 at the top. But Okami wins out artistically.

 

[Crane]

Zone of the Enders 2

Everything just looks so clean and beautiful

 

[Jediuser]

Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner is also gorgeous. And it holds up much, much better than the original (even if the English localization is shit. 'Twenty to touchdown).

 

[sun0wl]

Zone of the Enders 2

Everything just looks so clean and beautiful

ZOE did look amazing, and I love its very 00s futuristic aesthetic. It reminds me of how great the UI aesthetic of the times could be, too. The clean lines, modern/futuristic type faces, and stark neon colors. Not sure what to call it besides the 00s Futuristic look lol. Front Mission 4, the Metal Gear Games, Lifeline (lol), all had it...The list goes on and reaches back into the PS1 era with the original Metal Gear maybe kicking it off, and even Square RPGs like Parasite Eve and Vagrant Story using it to great effect. Kojima and/or whoever he worked with on for ZoE and MGS knew what they were doing.

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

Nothing's ever beating Vanillaware imo, they cannot stop cooking

 

[drizzes]

I think Rogue Galaxy still looks fantastic

 

[Jambhala]

GT4 was another one I considered.

In terms of photorealism, I'd put GT4 at the top. But Okami wins out artistically.

Playing GT4 feels like watching racing footage filmed with a shitty camera in the 90s, they even got the shine of the asphalt down.

 

[TotzOnGaming]

The Ace Combat games
Haunting Ground
Fatal Frame 3
are a few I can think of most already mentioned above.

 

[Rhent]

I would say Okami and Odin’s Sphere.

 

[OmegaPunch's iconOmegaPunch]

Auto Modellista's graphics haven't aged one bit.

 

[DunkeyKong]

It might look outdated, but Monster Hunter games. The town, weapons, monsters and the area still looks so beautiful to me. Especially Verdant Hills, the view is so memorable