Personally, I consider “retro graphics” to specifically mean the graphics evoke the look of an old game system, as opposed to just having “lo-fi” art. So I’d say that Celeste has great pixel art, but it’s not retro graphics, since it doesn’t remind me of any old console’s look. In addition to the games others have mentioned, I’ll point out these ones.

• Nintendo 64 — Corn Kidz 64
• Game Boy Color — Mina the Hollower
• Game Boy Advance — Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo
• Commodore 64 — VVVVVV
• Mid-late 90s PC — Hypnospace Outlaw

Indie games using retro graphics is nothing new. The ratio of effort vs looks is pretty good. The solo dev of Cave Story (released 2004) said that was why he went for that aesthetic.

@Tekkip20 Lunacid, King’s Field like with many modern accomodations l

The Big Catch, a coming low poly 3D platformer

Anodyne 2: Return to Dust, a surrealist action adventure

The Last Door (1 & 2)

Darkside Detective

Thank me later.

Pseudoregalia is a PS1-eta low-poly aesthetic 3D metroidvania with really, really slick movement mechanics. It’s the kind of game that really could’ve existed back then, had developers just known all the little quality of life design choices we have these days.

Noita, a precedurally-generated fully destructible, with physics, pixel-graphics action rogue-like game where you play as a mage going through the various layers of a dungeon with the use of your spells that one can spell mix and match with a wand system that can provide the player with interesting and wacky spell combinations.

I’m playing through Turbo Overkill right now which has the high-poly model and smooth animations but gritty low-res texture thing going on, and I like it. I’d take stylized textures that are visually interesting over boring photorealistic textures in most cases.

Nightdive’s System Shock remake is probably my favorite example of that same aesthetic.

I think games with sprites are great, but I can’t say the same for low poly 3d games. Not every 3d game needs to have super high fidelity with millions of polygons making up each character’s face, but I think games using n64/ps1-style models is a bit too far in the opposite direction.

I got 30hrs out of Animal Well and enjoyed every moment of it :)

There’s a game with pre-rendered backgrounds called Alisa. I always really enjoyed the pre-render look. The excitement of reaching a “cinematic FMV” that moves the story in a PS1 game is very different from standard cutscenes.

Crow country.

It’s a game like resident evil 1 with similar graphic feeling.

I need to mention the Enigma Trilogy here. It uses the retro graphics so well to its advantage to create a strong horror atmosphere that I don’t think could have been done anywhere near as well with high fidelity graphics.

And it has a very small audience and definitely deserves a lot more so go check these games out! https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/41914/THE_ENIGMA_TRILOGY/

I enjoy games that go for retro graphics, because with today’s technology they can do so much more with less.

As far as suggestions: any boomer shooter (Selaco, Supplice, Incision), others people have already mentioned in this thread like Signalis and Dread Delusion, and more like Tenebris Somnia which mixes 8-bit pixel graphics with live-action cutscenes.

I did see a few low-poly, very PS1 or N64-looking indies recently, even going as far as mimicking the weird texture wobbling from the PS1.

But Penny’s big breakaway is not really low-poly, or something that looks like 5th gen/PS1. Not graphically anyway.

Though it’s mechanically rather retro, with the focus on move combos, scoring and speedrunning. It’s almost more of a linear kind of skate or jet set radio-like game than a platformer.

A recent Digital Foundry video about the new perfect dark trailer showed a snippet of some game called “Agent 64”. I wishlisted it immediately.

I have a few in my library:

• Signalis (low-poly (not that you can notice), low-res, CRT effect)
• CrossCode (2D, low-res)
• Valheim (low-poly, low-res, still graphically intensive due to lighting)
• Lethal Company (low-res, bitcoin miner levels of GPU load)
• Super Alloy Ranger (2D, low-res)
• Terraria (you know Terraria, don’t lie)
• Iconoclasts (2D, low-res)
• Starbound (Terraria, but a bit worse and in space)

I don’t think these games aim for nostalgia, nostalgia alone is a good reason to choose low-poly or low-res graphics.

Low-res textures and sprites have the advantage of being much easier for artists not only to hand draw, but to explicitly choose what details a certain surface.
3D games with low-res rendering also have their own appeal, like you say: they tell you what you’re looking at but still leaves your imagination the burden of filling in the details.

To me low-poly models don’t really have their own appeal, unlike pixelated visuals, however I also don’t mind them at all.
I still occasionally play games like Perfect Dark and TLoZ: OoT on their recompiled PC ports, they look despite their low-poly nature because they don’t need high-poly models and their animations would look uncanny if they did (goofy ahh textures though).

However, there are some retro effects that I find to be straight up ugly: Signalis applies a CRT effect occasionally, which I can’t say I’m fond of.