Recently the Digital Foundry team met up online to discuss the best game graphics of 2023, with Alex Battaglia, John Linneman and Oliver Mackenzie nominating their favourite titles. What struck me about the list – reproduced in full at the end of the article – was how many titles weren’t those that were pushing the absolute boundaries of graphics technology in terms of features. Instead, the games chosen – and especially the highest ranking options – were those that were smartly designed to both serve gameplay and take full advantage of the (often limited) hardware they were running on.
Hi-Fi Rush and Super Mario Bros. Wonder are perfect examples of this, I feel. Both games were first-party releases that distinguish themselves with a bold, consistent sense of style, with colourful and imaginative environments populated by characters with exaggerated movement that emphasises particular poses. In Hi-Fi Rush in particular, this is heightened further by the cel-shaded appearance and decimated animation “on twos” that makes the game feel like a playable cartoon.
In both cases, the graphics and animation styles chosen serve the gameplay beautifully, with responsive controls and a living, breathing world that reacts to your actions, whether it’s enemy and flower reactions in Super Mario Bros. Wonder or the world gently vibing along with the music in Hi-Fi Rush.
