HD-2D still hasn’t lived up to its full potential

As far as video game aesthetics go, pixel art of the 1990s has aged remarkably well. The Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis era boasted tons of visually ambitious games with detailed character designs and environments, like Chrono Trigger, Ecco the Dolphin, and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. The style saw a resurgence in the 2010s, thanks to the indie boom and the unabashedly nostalgic-yet-modern look of games like Celeste, Hyper Light Drifter, and Undertale, which led directly to the popular “HD-2D” aesthetic, most recently seen in Octopath Traveler 0.