Games with little COPYPASTING

With as little as possible. I mean in assets: games where you don't constantly see the same textures and models (at least in environments. As you'll see the same enemies repeat in pretty much any game... except for Shadow of the Colossus, I guess) every 5 minutes, games where everything you encounter feels unique and carefully handcrafted.

Examples:

-Somehow the first game that springs to mind lately is God of War 3. But it's also true for Ascension and other games in the series (to a lesser extent). Every location in GoW3 feels so expensive! Love this in games and wanna find more games like it.

-Games with prerendered backgrounds. Like Resident Evil. All the backgrounds are completely Unique.

-Uncharted 2, I guess... Uncharted 1's locations kinda do feel samey.

The list in progress:

1. [Pretty much any games with prerendered backgrounds, a-la Resident Evil 2]
2. [Any Adventure games with hand-drawn backgrounds, like Machinarium]
3. [All Quantic Dream games. Omikron too?]
4. [All WarioWare games]
5. God of War 3
6. God of War Ascension
7. Uncharted 2
8. Uncharted 4
9. Max Payne 3
10. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
11. Until Dawn
12. Gone Home
13. Need for Speed: The Run
14. Ori and the Blind Forest
15. Frog Fractions
16. Dead Space 2
17. Dark Souls
18. Undertale
19. Wolfenstein The New Order

It has to be a Naughty Dog game right? Their games have gotten ridiculous with the production value. I think any candidate has to be a pretty tightly scripted title. I can't think anything really touches Uncharted 4. The production value of Max Payne 3 is bonkers but U4 is shockingly detailed.

Shorter, "experience" type indies are good at it, like Brothers: A tale of two sons, or Inside.

I also want to clal out Mario games. Specifically, Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, while they do reuse some early stage assets for lategame stuff, are fantastic at always doing a unique thing for a little while and then move on to something entirely different. I've heard the same is the case for 3D Land and 3D World. Resident Evil 4 and Half-Life 2 are the same kind of event-based campaigns where something new happens every half hour, but that's more types of content than art assets.

Not reusing assets at all is usually unavoidable for workload and budgetary reasons, and I don't really mind unless developers go full DMC4.

It's kind of a stretch calling them games but the experiences Quantic Dream make all have pretty unique enviroments that are very detailed.

And other games in that vein like Until Dawn and Shenmue. Also stage based action games like Bayonetta and Ninja Gaiden. (although the first game had some backtracking)

Dead Space 2 has a lot of unique rooms.

Gone Home springs to mind. One small environment, but a lot of unique and detailed textures.

Do Warioware games count?

@boozak: I don't think Bayonetta counts. I recently watched Kamiya's playthrough again, and Chapter 9 is reused assets galore. It's an interesting video in relation to the topic, because he talks about the constraints of making a game, and gives many examples of reused assets in earlier Clover/Platinum games. He talks about it some in the next episode too, I believe. Specifically, the boss after Temperantia is made of spare parts from other things in the game.

@redhotchilimist: I suppose that felt intentional to me, not like they were cutting corners, the whole nature of the universe kind of allows for that which is convenient.

I always appreciate the brutal honesty of Kamiya. I know we'll probably never hear about what happend with Scalebound but that would be an interesting read/video.

Good picks, both I agree with.

Forgot to say that I, of course, created the thread out of completely egotistical motives - to find more games like the ones mentioned to play. Played most of what you listed, not all apply in my opinion though.

-Brothers = yes, very unique, very handcrafted (and short because of that). Fits the criteria

-INSIDE = basically, Brothers in terms of shortness, but they didn't have the budget to spend on crafting locations. Everything is kinda untextured. Pretty sure I'd love this game, but it doesn't fit the strict criterion

-Mario Galaxy = definitely thought about the 2 games when creating the thread... they, again - strictly speaking, don't fit, as towards the end they do become reusing the levels and the assets. I'm looking for games that are not afraid to have a level that a player will rush through in a minute that artists have spent a year to create (figuratively). But Mario Galaxy games are close. 3D Land I'm not 100% sure, but 3D World does the same thing as Galaxy - there is recycling.

-RE4 = did think about later RE's (without prerendering), of course, when creating the thread. Absolutely all locations in 4 felt totally bland, uninteresting and repetitive to me (good enemy variety, though). RE5 may be a better fit, RE6 probably too (didn't play 6)

-HL2 = very eventful and does feel expensive, but somehow not every location feels meticulously handcrafted. All assets reused throughout the game. But still - close

-DMC4 = if you divide it into two parts, the first part would almost fit the criteria

Good Racing game example would be Need for Speed: The Run (main campaign).

I remember hearing they handpainted every background in Ori and the Blind Forest, so probably that.

Although if you think Uncharted 2 and God of War 3 don't reuse the same assets constantly, I don't know what to tell ya. They definitely do a better job of hiding it, but those are definitely the same few trees, grass textures, and rocks repeated over and over again.

@boozak: I dunno, I played through it recently and you fight the same 3 bosses like 5 times over the course of the game, despite sending them all screaming into hell the first time you beat them. I definitely didn't get the sense they wanted to have those fights repeating in every other chapter.

Darn, a big post I wrote somehow deleted itself. :(

Quantic Dream games = absolutely do count, it's pretty much what I'm looking for (although the gameplay itself may not be my jam a 100%)

Until Dawn = very similar to QD games, does fit

Shenmue = to a lesser extent, because somehow I didn't feel that most of those $100 million (from 1999!) were poured into the asset making. I don't know, it's a hard one. Locations do feel unique and samey at the same time... Maybe simply because a real town in real life feels samey too

Bayonetta = gotta check it out, although Redhotchilimist already posted Kamia's repentance!

Ninja Gaiden = didn't play the 2nd and the 3rd ones, but I wouldn't count Black/Sigma, as the main area of the game feels like it was crafted of a very limited number of assets. From the videos, 2's and 3's locations looked unimaginitive as well. What about Devil's Third?

Frog Fractions

@adequatelyprepared said:

Figured as much, need to try it out. Not true for Dead Space 3?

Actually, it does fit, I think. Never played it though.

They absolutely do! Although they don't feel expensive and complex, each new game makes you feel you're playing something completely fresh.

@tvippy: Dead Space 3 has an embarrassing amount of copy-pasting. Entire arctic bases are just lazily shuffled around to give the impression that you're actually in different locations. Dead Space 2 does reuse a simple apartment environment a few times (along with maybe one or two instances of backtracking where you take an alternate route from a location you were already in) but it overall keeps on throwing unique assets and environments at the player.

Okay no, wait, there is one major instance of copy+pasting in the game, and it's in fact from Dead Space 1, but is it used to incredibly good effect.

You go back on the Ishimura from Dead Space 1, and the whole section is just a great sequence of Isaac losing his mind/suffering from PTSD episodes.

Very interesting video in the context of this thread!

Ori and the Blind Forest = they don't feel 100% handcrafted to me, but I haven't played the game. Gotta count it for now. :)

I didn't formulate my request properly. Of course, I do realize that even the most expensive of fully 3D games DO reuse everything all the time. I guess, the ONLY games with completely unique levels would the prerendered backgrounds ones then. I'm looking for the ones that hide it better.

Good pick!

Interesting, thanks for the info. You've made me sad about DS3 though. :( I thought it was supposed to be the most uniquely-assetted of the three...

I just provided games like Ninja Gaiden and Bayonetta because I felt like each stage had it's own theme. (the sequels to NG definitely lean harder into that, even if they're not as good)

And no Devil's Third didnt have very imaginative levels. (It still had less copy and pasting than most games do these days though)

But yeah the first Bayonetta come to think of it did have a lot of padding, the sequel was a much tighter game. (although they did reuse Vigrid, but in a really cool way)

Definitely The Last of Us. Dark Souls I thought had a good variety between the zones. Demon's Souls and Bloodborne have variety but feel more consistent in a general way (granted I haven't gotten to the crazy stuff in Bloodborne yet). Still, there's technically variety in terms of assets with those things. Nevermind the Asylum Demon.

@boozak: Ahh the ole "aren't games but experiences" distinction

World of Warcraft because it constantly re-uses cave, building and mini-dungeon designs, shifting texture colours or adding things like spider webs to make them seem different.

On several occasions they've simply re-used whole raids such as Naxxramas (Vanilla and then in Lich King) and Onyxia. I don't really count Warlords of Draenor as a copy and paste of Outland from Burning Crusade though, as the two landmasses were drastically different.

@redhotchilimist: Slightly off-topic, but I loved how Inside didn't really reuse assets and had really distinct areas to traverse, yet they all flowed into one other seamlessly. The way the game so naturally progresses from the forest to the city and beyond feels really satisfying.

Wouldn't you say Uncharted 2 is much better in that respect, compared to The Last of Us? TLOU's locations didn't feel that diverse.

Dark Souls = I would put it on the list. Do you think I should put it there (I've never really played the game)?

Bloodborne = definitely not though... samey.

MMO's are the epitomy of copypasted games. Would like to find even a single MMO that wouldn't look that way, just for the sake of it, but pretty sure it's impossible.

While an amazing game, INSIDE still visually feels cheapish and thus doesn't fit the criteria. Cheap in the way that it basically lacks texturing. Devs would probably want you to believe it's a very delibarate stylistic choise, but we all know the truth. The game was made by 3-4 (talented) guys and it does feel like it was.

P.S. Where's that Brothers sequel??? It's been 3 years since that teaser-trailer ("Brothers" on the train) was shown!

@tvippy Hmmm, yeah, I'd say Dark Souls's worthy of a spot. All told it's got quite a selection of distinctive zones, with respective enemies to boot.

As for The Last of Us, I think it does variety differently from Uncharted 2. For Uncharted 2 I'd say the big thing is its variety of "zones" or "worlds" to put it in video gamey terms (jungle, city, snow, that sort of thing; biomes or whatever), whereas TLoU does variety and detail all within a single "zone" (but also with some seasonal stuff). Barring that distinction, I'd say the detail that went into TLoU's locations gives it the edge over Uncharted 2 in terms of feeling handcrafted and constantly new. But comparing the two almost feels like apples to oranges.

Undertale, almost every encounter in many zones is a unique enemy that you'll never see again and there is an incredible number of so many unique tracks

Yoshi's Island. There is at least one new piece of art, enemy, or mechanic in every level.

Wolfenstein The New Order was custom as shit. Vanquish CONSTANTLY throws new stuff at you, with the exception of one boss that they reuse to great effect. Dishonored and Dishonored 2 are full of bespoke detail. SUPERHOT is all killer. The Portal games too. Bloodborne is also much more custom than Dark Souls due to the fidelity difference and creative inspiration.

I love this thread as the OP is highlighting my favourite thing about games. The sense that everything has been crafted meticulously for specific moments.

Couple games added.