Retro games have weird shading on 3D building models because early hardware lacked the power for realistic lighting, forcing simple techniques.
Early consoles and computers couldn’t handle complex lighting calculations, so they used flat shading (coloring entire polygons one color) or gouraud shading (smoothing between polygon corners). Both make building surfaces look blocky or have unnatural color gradients instead of smooth, real-world shadows.
Try classic games like *Super Mario 64* or *Tomb Raider*—you’ll notice building walls with hard shadow lines or uneven tones, direct results of these old shading limits.