Legend of Zelda Wind Waker and Ico

My friends were arguing over some game graphics and as gaming is my one real hobby I thought I'd step in. The two games were Legend of Zelda Wind Waker and Ico. The argument wasn't between which one was better though. They were arguing about whether the above mentioned Zelda game had decent graphics. Ico was only drawn in as an example to show what 'decent' graphics are. Here is my verdict on both of them:

Before anyone goes "They are rubbish because they are cartoony/any other style" I would like to say graphic qualitly has nothing to do with style, it is to do with how smooth a circle is, how far things are drawn and how good the textures are.

Legend of Zelda Windwaker

It is fair to say these graphics are meant to be cartoony. This may put some people off and is certainly not the most widely used style for a reason. The curves are very good and non main features have been blurred to great a soft feel. Textures are possibly the downfall to this graphics. They use plain colors with few gradients and a lack of realistic repeating plans. Also, the water is not very good. The game was released in late March 2003.

Score: 3.5/10



Ico

This was used as the example of 'Good Graphics'. To say that at first sight these look amazing. Upon closer inspection how ever you discover that the textures are not repeated but just stretched to create pixelated texture. As with Zelda, water has been done fairly poorly. When some one gets in water it ripples, it is not a solid mirror. Also, they have completely missed out shadow and it does not handle distance at all well. On the other hand, the main characters are beautifully rendered and the textures at a distance look very nice. Because the game is fairly new I would also expect individual blades of grass not a stretched texture called grass.jpg It was released early December 2005.

Score : 4/5