Some water pics I took while playing Steambot Chronicles this afternoon. This game ain’t a looker but it sure does rule so hard.
Pikmin 3’s Twilight River is what comes to mind for me — Watching your little guys pile onto a lily pad to float along the water is such a nice moment and the whole stage is designed around it!
red ninja end of honor has good water
La Mulana
Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap
Psycho World
Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys
The first four are from my old screenshot Let’s Plays, the fourth one was posted by Kishi on the Talking Time forums.
Reverse: 1999 has a mode where you make a little wilderness space for your dudes to hang out in, and you can get various tilesets to decorate it. All the tilesets have different colored water and I don’t know why they would do that
It’s hard to find examples without spending a lot of time combing (or capturing) and trimming footage, but my absolute favorite usage of water in a video game is when you’re controlling a fast-moving vehicle or mount and you can skim across the surface of the water, sending those jets of mist up around you. Star Fox 64 is the best example I can think of, Ranger X does this, maybe the Panzer Dragoons? It’s such a specific feeling and it hits me just right every time
Ace combat is a great example of this, because you’re not often that close to the surface so It’s always a nice surprise.
(best thing I found is a youtube short )
Luftrausers does it! Big time. Skimming the water is like half the fun of playing this game for me lol
The reflections in the water in Tales of Phantasia, more than the digitised voices, the action battle system, or the smutty language in a late-game cutscene, were what really impressed me about the game, for some reason:
Sadly they weren’t there for the GBA port:
Which is a crime worse than not picking up on the spell check converting Ragnarok to “Kangaroo”.
WATER PHYSICS
I saw doubting between water looks and water physics (or motion because reflection and refraction are physics).
Also the proximity water splash its a motion but rocks because how cool it looks.
And in the realm of water physics, we have to mention Hydrophobia
loved this reflection on the GBA Pokemon! That felt next gen