There are many other great styles of pixel art. You may have seen that list before and asked, “Where? Ocean Star: The Second Story R?” Well, it’s not HD-2D. It’s similar, but not at all – different lighting, different camera angles, and different pixel art. only enough difference. I’m glad Gemdrops went a different route to get an excellent remake.
But looking outside of Square’s catalog, you only have to look at the variety of indie titles to see how diverse pixel art can be. Sea of stars‘ best asset are its visuals – they’re beautiful, a true SNES-style kaleidoscope of pixels and colors just above 16-bit.
Team Ladybug is another developer that delivers incredible pixel art, especially in Deedlit in the Magic Labyrinth and coming soon Blade Chimera. These smooth animations combined with highly detailed textures and backgrounds make for some incredible looking games. Look at our list Best pixel art game on Switch to understand the diversity I’m talking about elsewhere.
In most cases, I would be satisfied with Square Enix simply remaking many of its classics. No, I don’t want Vaseline filtering through the pixels (looking at you, Grandia HD), I wanted something that would lovingly preserve and enhance the art we already had. the Pixel Remaster are a great example – I know they’re not for everyone, but I love how the colors pop in these versions. Even if Final Fantasy VIIts Opera scenes blend into the HD-2D ‘style’. But a better example might be I, IIAnd IV re-released on PSP, which I think is the best looking version of those games.
HD-2D is meant to evoke the past – and right now, it feels like people want it to recreate the past, the classic games they thought they remembered. There’s nothing wrong with that, but some visual variety would be nice. They don’t all have to be like that Romance SaGa 2: Revenge of the SevenFully 3D, new music, new text, etc. but I’d like to see some different styles. Redo, redo, redo, anything else.
Remaking and remastering games isn’t cheap or easy, and HD-2D itself is expensive – producer Octopath and Triangle Strategy Tomoya Asano himself said so in an interview a few years agothat’s why you can’t see it everywhere. But it’s quite popular at this point.
HD-2D should be reserved for Triangle Strategy and Octopath travelers. These are two games, borrowed something Lena Raine said about music and nostalgia, “bring [retro] engage in conversation with the present moment so that you still have inspiration but are moving it forward.”
I have no doubt Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake will be amazing. I will play it. And maybe I’ll like the way it looks. But I don’t want Square Enix or other developers to rely on a single visual style. Give us something else. You could even port Chrono Trigger or Xenogears to Switch – I’d love to very happy with that and I’m sure many others are too.
What do you think about the HD-2D style after nearly 8 years? Would you like to see Square Enix remake more games with it or do you think there’s enough already? Vote in the polls below and share your thoughts in the comments section.
