Surprised no one has said The Banner Saga yet. The art is gorgeous.

Homeworld for me, as well as the first Crysis. The assault level especially where you attack the harbour during the early morning. For a glorious few minutes you get to see the tropical beach scenery lit up by the sunrise. Hands down my favorite part of the game.

Aquaria is probably the best when it comes to oceanic environments. La-Mulana is king while regarding the depiction of abandoned mythologies. Rayman Origins is awesome for the whimsical nature it possesses.

Can't remember them all right now, but Samurai Shodown 3 is one.

Aquaria, Dust: An Elysian Tail, Giana Sisters, Gravity Ghost, and Orcs Must Die! all come to mind as having strong art direction, but I cannot think of anything that beats Trine.

^ this

Nice to see you around :)

I concur with Amanita Design (but my thoughts go mostly to the Samarost series) and Banner Saga. And Homeworld.

I remember my awe in front of Morrowind (so much sightseeing, so much screenshotting), Seadogs (the waters, the islands around you) and Far Cry 1 (i was reluctant to play it for a while because i felt that machine gun gameplay was spoiling that environment), but i'm ready to accept that technology has left these behind.

But also : XIII.

I wish the XIII artstyle had become a standard.

Hmm... I've played it somewhat on my PS2, and for the graphics I mostly remember the use of cel-shaded graphics (which I guess used to be a craze at some point with game developers), and lots and lots of motion blur, even so much that it kinda annoyed me.

But my memory might be failing me a bit, I need to play it again at some point (if I ever intend to finish it). I somehow lost interest to the game, I think I was digging out some turnips from some field with my doggie and some old lady got angry about it, I didn't really understand what I was doing in the game and why. :)

Serious Sam (also the Second Encounter) has a soft spot in my heart for its graphics. Even though it is an old game, its graphics still amaze me. They just ooze of awesomeness.


Oh, now I recall another PS2 game: ICO. I've always liked its graphics and art, even if they look a bit fuzzy nowadays. I haven't seen the HD remakes on PS3 and such.

If I have to pick just one, then I have to pick The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt hands down. There are a number of other contenders not far off but by my own eyes at least The Witcher 3 takes the cake for games released to date which I've actually played or seen first hand on my own monitor.

I just played it last month for the first time, after discovering that games actually get discounted on the PS store, and I have to agree.

At first I thought that "what's this going to be, miles and miles of monotonous desert?", and by the end of the game I found myself stopping on the top of hills just to watch the scenery. And then there's the North, the icing on the cake.

Art direction wise? Silent Hill 2 is up there.

Possibly my favorite art direction from any game is that of Abe's Oddyssee. It's so gorgeously weird and otherwordly

I'm not sure about art style, but for graphical quality it has to be Star Wars: Battlefront. The game lacks content, but looks almost photorealistic at times. The Witcher 3 also looks pretty good from what I've seen of it too (I need to play it sometime to confirm this.).

I'm a fan of absurdly colorful art styles, personally. Majora's Mask, Chrono Cross, Grow Home, Okami (to a certain extent), and Jade Cocoon come to mind. Broken Age, for all its problems, is a pretty stunning game in its own unique way, too.

But Chrono Trigger is at the very top of the pile for me. It's colorful, but knows when to use that to create atmosphere and when to stick to something more muted. The sprite work is unparalleled to this day, and there's enough detail to separate and differentiate parts of the game so well that I can remember area layouts despite not having played it for years. And that 600 AD fog! Ah, memories. In fact, that might be all nostalgia. It still captured my imagination way back, though.

Oh oh oh, and Seiken Densetsu 3 is gorgeous for a lot of the same reasons. I'd always use Angela as the main character to start in the area with trees that have Christmas lights on them. So wildly impractical and pretty. Little touches like that really add up.

Not necessary the best looking, but my favourites from each genre:

Divinity Original Sin, of the modern cRPG realm.
Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale/Planescape, of the classic cRPG realm (because Infinity Engine rocks).
Castlevania Symphony of the Night, of the 2D classic platform realm.
Trine/Rayman Origins, of the modern platform realm.
Machinarium/Samorost/Deponia, of the modern indie point & click realm.
Technobabylon, of the modern indie pixel art adventure realm.
Rise of Flight/Falcon BMS, of the flight sim realm.
Mass Effect, of the 3rd person action realm.
Midnight Wanderers, of the arcade platform realm.
Half-Life 2/Metro 2033/Dishonored/CoD Modern Warfare, of the FPS realm.

The list is neverending. If I had to choose only one, that would be Dishonored. I think that Dishonored's art direction is the best I've seen in any game.