History SpecialEffectFailure / VideoGames

* ''VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed2'' has amazing graphics for the most part. Of course, if you start blowing up barrels, the barrels in the three-dimensional world look like some two-dimensional thing out of the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64.

* The clouds in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' look bizarrely blocky to the point you can practically count the squares despite being on the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch so there's pretty much no excuse for this. The sun when viewed on the battlefield isn't much better either, often having sunset colours despite battles usually taking place in bright daylight. The produce in the market stalls are also clearly flat rather than modelled.

** Speaking of cutscenes, sometimes the visuals can end up bugging, like major characters [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=z5q6zv56Dzs#t=16m30s getting killed mid cinematic]] while still speaking as if they were fine, or [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=PhMXDzDH3ZI#t=26m36s missing transition shots like Tyrande going from one shot of being alive in a intact bridge to suddenly dissapearing along the bridge on the next shot while her line plays as if she was still there]].

* Many retro games don't render correctly in modern hardware, or at least not in the way the devs intended, leading to this trope. For instance, old console games would often exploit imperfections in old [=TVs=] and display methods to produce visual effects than the system couldn't natively output. A technique that made full use of this was dithering, which would take advantage of the pixel blending in composite to display more colors or transparency, but in modern displays it looks like a set of lines or checkerboard dots instead (unless a special filter is used to simulate the old look), becoming this trope. Some examples of these "tricks" would be:

* Many retro games don't render correctly in modern hardware, or at least not in the way the devs intend, leading to this trope. For instance, old console games would exploit imperfections in old [=TVs=] and display methods to produce visual effects than the system couldn't natively output. A technique that made full use of this was dithering, which would take advantage of the pixel blending in composite to display more colors or transparency, but in modern displays it looks like a set of lines or checkerboard dots instead (unless a special filter is used to simulate the old look), becoming this trope. Some examples of these "tricks" would be:
** Games like classic ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' used dithering to produce transparency.[[https://i.imgur.com/qFEvOyh.png]] The misconception that the waterfalls in Green Hill Zone are supposed to look like a bunch of lines became so widespread that even ''VideoGame/SonicMania'' depicted them like that.

*** The game suffers ''badly'' from a ChromaKey effect. Outside of the world map and battles, the environments are made up of prerendered backgrounds, making a start contrast with the chibi low-poly models superimposed on top of them. It's even worse when playing the PC version on a resolution higher than that of the PSX, as the backgrounds are stretched without any filters, making them incredibly pixelated. The models, on the other hand, are properly rendered at a high resolution, making them look stick out like a sore thumb. This problem is also present in the other PSX Final Fantasy games (see below).

* Many retro games don't render correctly in modern hardware, or at least not in the way the devs intend, leading to this trope. For instance, old games took advantage of imperfections in old [=TVs=] such as color blending to display more colors than the system could natively input. A technique that made full use of this was dithering, which would produce transparency or extra colors, but in modern displays looks like a set of lines or checkerboard dots instead. Some examples would be:
** Games like classic ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' used dithering to produce transparency. This effect doesn't work in modern displays unless a special filter is used to blend the pixels.[[https://i.imgur.com/qFEvOyh.png]]

** Games like classic ''[[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog Sonic]]'' used dithering to produce transparency. This effect doesn't work in modern displays unless a special filter is used to blend the pixels.[[https://i.imgur.com/qFEvOyh.png]]

* Many retro games don't render correctly in modern hardware, or at least not in the way the devs intend, leading to this trope. For instance, old games took advantage of flaws in old [=TVs=] such as color blending to display more colors than the system could natively input. A technique that made full use of this was dithering, which would produce more colors or transparency in composite video. As modern display don't suffer from the same imperfections, dithering tends to look like checkerboard dots instead. Some examples:

** Many games with prerendered graphics such as ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' look smoother and more colorful in CRT, but more pixelated, jaggy and artifact-ridden in modern displays.[[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERt-XslUYAUVCGW?format=jpg&name=orig]]

* Many retro games don't render correctly in modern hardware, or at least not in the way the devs intend, leading to this trope. For instance, old games took advantage of flaws in old [=TVs=] such as color blending to display more colors than the system could natively input. A technique that made full use of this was dithering, which would produce more colors or transparency in composite video. As modern display don't suffer from the same imperfections, dithering tends to look like a group of dots instead. Some particular examples:
** Classic ''[[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog Sonic]]'' games used dithering to display transparent waterfalls. This effect doesn't work in modern displays unless a special filter is used to blend the pixels.[[https://i.imgur.com/qFEvOyh.png]]
** The graphics in ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' look smoother and more colorful in CRT, but more pixelated and artifact-ridden in modern displays.[[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERt-XslUYAUVCGW?format=jpg&name=orig]]

* Many retro games don't render correctly in modern hardware, or at least not in the way the devs intend, leading to this trope. For instance, old games took advantage of flaws in old [=TVs=] such as color blending to display more colors than the system could natively input. A technique that made full use of this was dithering, which would produce more colors or transparency in composite video. As modern display don't suffer from the same imperfections, dithering tends to look like a grid of pixels instead. Some particular examples:

* Many retro games don't render correctly in modern hardware, or at least not in the way the devs intend, leading to this trope. For instance, old games took advantage of flaws in CRT [=TVs=] such as pixel blending to display more colors than the system could natively input. A technique that made full use of this was dithering, which would produce more colors or transparency in old CRT displays. As modern display don't suffer from the same imperfections, dithering tends to look like a grid of pixels instead. Some particular examples:
** Classic ''[[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog Sonic]]'' games used dithering to display transparent waterfalls. This effect doesn't work in modern displays unless a special filter is used to blend the pixels.[[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D6daaO4UYAAWtHO?format=jpg&name=orig]]

* Some of the backgrounds in ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' are [[https://thekingofgrabs.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/paper-mario-n64-104.jpg really poorly compressed,]] with obvious artifacts that make them look really jarring even on the original hardware.

* Some of the backgrounds in''VideoGame/PaperMario'' are [[https://thekingofgrabs.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/paper-mario-n64-104.jpg really poorly compressed,]] with obvious artifacts that make them look really jarring even on the original hardware.

ridiculous as you'd expect.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMinishCap'': Early in the story Link defeats a Deku Scrub who attacked Zelda, prompting it to apologize and promise to stop attacking people and go back to his cave, right supposedly leaving. The problem is that the devs didn't bother making an animation of the Scrub walking away, so they just had him use the standard enemy death animation, with it exploding into smoke, making it look as though it just died.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'' has the Chain Chomp enemy whose mouth is colored red. On the UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole version, the red was strangely changed to purple, giving the enemy a purple mouth. Some people thought Nintendo was trying to censor the game, but it turns out that it was just a glitch with the game's emulator. Likewise, every character and enemy has a circular shadow below them, including Mario. If Mario falls into a BottomlessPit, the camera keeps its distance to make it look like Mario is falling to his death. On closer inspection, you can see Mario's shadow underneath him as he falls and it's easier to see if the level's skybox are clouds.

* A similar palette swap failure can be seen in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld''. The death sprite looks right (if [[OffModel awkward]]) [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/smw_mario_death.png when playing as Mario]], but the sprite artist clearly didn't account for Luigi's green palette. So when he dies, it looks as though [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/smw_luigi_death.png his tongue and part of his face turn green...]]

** The GBA remakes of ''Donkey Kong Country 2'' and ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry3DixieKongsDoubleTrouble'' have the new bosses [[https://www.mariowiki.com/Kerozene Kerozene]] and [[https://www.mariowiki.com/Kroctopus Kroctopus]]. While the idea of having new bosses for the ports sounds like a good idea, Kerozene and Kroctopus end up looking very out-of-place. Not only do their sprites manage to be poorly modeled (in games that ''already'' have CG sprites), their animations are incredibly choppy and lifeless. Kroctopus is slightly more in-style than Kerozene, though his sprites are still far more cartoonish and less detailed than any boss from the original game. They end up looking very hastily thrown together just to add more content to the GBA versions.

** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'', Gyorg's introductory cinematic has an attempt at a "freeze frame" effect as the creature dramatically leaps out of the water, during which his name appears onscreen. However, the fact that the splashing water keeps moving well after Gyorg has stopped makes it ''very'' obvious that the effect is accomplished by just locking Gyorg's model in place for a few seconds during its jump animation and not actually freezing the image. The 3DS port rectifties this by making the boss move in slow motion during its intro.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkBetweenWorlds'': The devs wanted to mimic the top-down 3/4 perspective of ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast A Link to the Past]]''. However, for some reason, they refused to use an angled camera. Their solution? Making it so that ''nearly everything is actually leaning backwards'', while having the camera face from the front to hide it. The problem is that you can make the camera angle change by merging into a wall, which in many places, lets you see that things are unnaturally leaning backwards, and it looks as ridiculous as you'd expect.