I disagree, the VGA looked the best for me. The Amiga is close, but one has to go a notch down in graphics, I prefer the EGA low res for its charm. Not that the Amiga one didn't look great. I had much better audio on my Amiga 1200 running Monkey Island.

I played that version only much later (originally I had it on Amiga and then PC VGA), but the EGA version has indeed a unique charm of its own. It really feels like an alternative, equally good looking relase rather than a downgraded version of the VGA one, which makes sense as iirc it was developed and shipped first.

100%. What Steve Purcell and Mark Ferrari achieved with those 16 colors is simply genius. The 256 color version added detail, but lost much of the boldness and elegance of the EGA version.

Some reasons as to why it can look better at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26445522

Some time ago I read a long recollection of Mark Ferrari on the origins of the graphics, but now I can't find it for the best of me. There's a very nice interview where it explains it a bit at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri4_3P2Oh14 , though.

a long explanation or interview by Mark

I had 8 bit machines (Spectrum and C64) and then got an Amiga A500. I remember at the time being nothing short of appalled by CGA[0] colour palettes, since CGA was still pretty commonplace in the late 80s and even the early 90s (e.g., at school).

It cemented an opinion that PC hardware of the era was overpriced, underperforming, and uninteresting.

I’ve subsequently developed a healthy respect for what developers and artists have been able to achieve within the constraints of CGA but I have no nostalgia for it. The CGA demoscene is very much worth checking out though - loads of super impressive videos on YouTube.

[0] We used to refer to CGA as Crap Graphics Array, and I seriously doubt we were alone.

The contrast between VGA and EGA "pirate close up" cracked me up!