Character design aesthetics musing

[DjinnAndTonic]

Recently I've been drawing a lot of character designs for the IAQ project that a few of us have been working on and it got me to thinking about the art styles used in RPGs. By and large, there's a predominance of anime and anime-influenced styles when it comes to character design. However, there's a fairly large difference between many games' styles even though they are all considered 'anime-style'.

While I was making my too-long commute one day without any headphones or DS, I started a mental exercise where I tried to come up with a 'scale' of how anime-like a game's character designs were. Using something like this, it becomes possible to start grouping styles and seeing which kinds are actually the most prevalent in RPGs.

Now, character design obviously isn't entirely linear, so there's probably going to be some variation based on my own personal tastes and what I look for in character design. To try to standardize the list a bit, my primary criteria for 'how anime a design is' is based on how realistic the proportions are. So on the 'most anime' end of the scale are going to be the games with the most deformation/exaggeration from human proportions. Likewise, the 'most realistic' end would have designs that should be fairly accurate with human anatomy.

I thought I'd post it here to see how my own way of looking at character art differs from other RPG fans'.

Earthbound tier: This shouldn't even be considered 'anime' style.
Earthbound

Super-deformed tier: Really cutesy anime-types. Due to how much they warp human proportions, they tend to stand out, which is generally a good thing, but it really clashes when they do crossovers from more realistic styles.
Final Fantasy Chocobo series
Yggdra Union
Etrian Odyssey series
Disgaeas, Phantom Brave, Makai Kingdom
Vandal Hearts

Overly-skinny tier: Tends to be used for games with younger casts. Still very stylized and clashes with other tiers.
The World Ends With You
Final Fantasy Tactics
Wizard of Oz DS
Breath of Fire 5
Odinsphere
Final Fantasy 9

'Soft' style tier: These characters finally starting to look like humans, but they still have too-large heads or overly-rounded features.
Riviera
Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced/2, FF12RW
Pokemon
Seiken Densetsu 2, 3
La Pucelle Tactics
Soul Nomad

Less Realistic 'Standard Anime' tier: The beginning of where 'standard anime' proportions are seen. Heads are somewhat overlarge, but bodies are mostly proportional for males. Females tend to have too-large breasts and too-small waists. Everyone has huge anime eyes, but this is 'standard'.
Shining Force 1, 2, Gaiden
Mana Khemias
Atelier Iris series
Shining Force EXA

Toriyama tier: Still part of the above tier, but since I hate Toriyama art, I'm separating it out.
Dragon Quest series
Chrono Trigger
Dragon Quest 8
Dragon Quest Swords

Less Realistic 'Standard Anime' 80s/90s tier: I noticed most of these games' styles look like early 80s-90s anime art. Child characters are particularly deformed.
Grandia 1
Chrono Cross
Star Ocean 3
Arc the Lad 1-3
Suikoden 1
Breath of Fire 1
Wild ARMS 1
Tales of Legendia
Fire Emblem 1, 2, 3, 4
Phantasy Star series
Legaia series
Growlanser series

STANDARD Anime tier: Pretty much where the most common anime styles tend to fall. Tends not to clash with most of the other tiers.
Wild ARMS 2, 5, XF
Skies of Arcadia
Shining Force 3
Star Ocean 1, 2, 4
Lunar series
Tales of Destiny, Eternia
Breath of Fire 2
Jeanne D'Arc
Tales of Phantasia, Symphonia, Abyss, Vesperia
Golden Sun
Breath of Fire 3, 4
Suikoden 4, Tierkreis
Grandia 2
Wild ARMS 3, 4, ACF
Lufia 3, L2 remake
Final Fantasy 7
Arc the Lad 4

More Realistic 'Standard Anime' tier: These styles tend to hold onto the most prominent of anime tendencies such are large eyes, rounded faces, large breasts, and crazy hair, but tends towards realism everywhere else.
Shining Tears, Force NEO
Grandia 3
Brigandine
Suikoden 2, 3, 5, Tactics
Fire Emblem 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Legend of Dragoon
Rogue Galaxy
Valkyria Chronicles
Xenosaga 1, Xenogears
Valkyrie Profile 1

Realistic Anime-esque tier: Here we see the start games where proportions are more or less accurate with human anatomy. At the very least, these people could exist by the laws of physics. The hair still tends to be weird, and eyes might run a little large, but this is as close to realism as it gets while still being 'anime style'. Some of the pencilling and coloring styles are weird here, but the proportions match, so they go here.
Xenosaga 3
SaGa Frontier, Romancing SaGa ~weird style, but the proportions are fairly accurate
Valkyrie Profile Lenneth, VP2, VPDS
Final Fantasy 8
Dissidia
Shin Megami Tensei 3, Persona series, Digital Devil Saga
Compilation of Final Fantasy 7

Realism tier: More realistic than anime here, so I started a new tier.
Ogre Battle 64
Xenosaga 2
Final Fantasy 10, 12
Shadow Hearts series
Final Fantasy 13

Not anime tier: These have bypassed any attempt at realism, but certainly don't fit as 'anime', so think of this as the surrealism tier.
Lufia 2 ~ugly, but accurate
Uematsu art (FF1-6)


After making the list, I've noticed that this division accurately represents how much two characters from different series will 'clash' when I try to imagine them in a DL setting. The further apart they are on the list, the more likely it will seem as if they 'don't fit' in the same universe. Like... it's particularly jarring to imagine Shadow Hearts Yuri existing by the same laws of physics as Laharl from Disgaea.

I'm curious what other people think about this sort of division. Do differing art styles 'clash' when you think about the DL setting (or any crossover setting, really)? Do you think JRPG art styles are less linear than I've presented? Do you prefer the more 'standard' anime styles? The more realistic? The more Earthbound-tastic?

I'm still waffling with what kind of style I want to use for the IAQ, so musing on this is helpful.

[Talaysen]

After making the list, I've noticed that this division accurately represents how much two characters from different series will 'clash' when I try to imagine them in a DL setting. The further apart they are on the list, the more likely it will seem as if they 'don't fit' in the same universe. Like... it's particularly jarring to imagine Shadow Hearts Yuri existing by the same laws of physics as Laharl from Disgaea.

I'm curious what other people think about this sort of division. Do differing art styles 'clash' when you think about the DL setting (or any crossover setting, really)? Do you think JRPG art styles are less linear than I've presented? Do you prefer the more 'standard' anime styles? The more realistic? The more Earthbound-tastic?

Crossover games are already putting characters from different art styles together so I seriously don't see the issue here.

Also, I hate too realistic art styles.  They tend to try and put too much detail and with my poor eyesight everything just blends together on the TV screen.  It's why I can't play most FPSes worth a crap.

[Niu]

As someone who cares more about the lines and colors used by the artist, proportions really don't bother me, thus whichever is fine.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Trying for photorealism in a game is a fool's endeavor that, in the end, only dates your game.  What you should have is a style that, in some way, tries to be art-ish. The painted backgrounds that they used a few times in FF6 and CT aged so much better than the pre-rendered ones used for the PSX FFs now that it's ridiculous.

On the other hand, that doesn't mean your art style has to be really fancy. Earthbound art is "clay sculptures," which is awesome because it gives the game a consistent style. Even if I had only played EarthBound twice instead of like forty, you could show me an Earthbound screen with the party hidden and the NPCs walking around and I could say "that is Earthbound, the sprites are all rounded off and have almost no hard edges," to say nothing of identifying actual concept shots. It makes the game distinct from others.

Really, I'd rather that the art in games go for more of a surreal look. I mean, you have all this processing power and Suda51 is the only guy who thought to himself "Hey, I could use this power to make my game look like some entirely other medium."

[Yoshiken]

I'm gonna have to agree with Rob entirely here. Drifting away from RPGs, Okami is the perfect game as far as artwork goes - it tried something original and it worked. It doesn't rely on the realism of the characters/setting, but it's the sort of game that will age incredibly well, and the style they used suits the game.
Obviously realism suits some games well - I really can't imagine Shadow Hearts with a more anime-esque art style - but I can't help but feel there's some odd art style they could try that would suit the game just as well and would be a little more interesting/would still look good years down the line.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I'm gonna have to agree with Rob entirely here. Drifting away from RPGs, Okami is the perfect game as far as artwork goes - it tried something original and it worked. It doesn't rely on the realism of the characters/setting, but it's the sort of game that will age incredibly well, and the style they used suits the game.
Obviously realism suits some games well - I really can't imagine Shadow Hearts with a more anime-esque art style - but I can't help but feel there's some odd art style they could try that would suit the game just as well and would be a little more interesting/would still look good years down the line.

I'd either go Deco (you know, big around that timeframe) or really, really, really old comic books (like "Action Comics" style).

On the same note as Okami, No More Heroes. Good-looking game that will age well because it goes for an art style. It reminds me a little bit of Alan Moore's art style with the heavy use of shadows, now that I think about it.

[Cotigo]

I have to agree with Rob, too.  And another thing that hasn't really been mentioned:  Going for realism can make your characters downright ugly.  Whether it approaches the uncanny valley too closely or just fails in another way, "realistic"ly styled games tend to have ugly ass characters.  SH kind of avoids this to an extent, but I haven't seen a Bioware/Bethesda game with aesthetically pleasing characters yet.  Well, no, there are some aesthetically pleasing characters, but they're either not human (HK-47) or completely covered in armor or something else (Tali, Mandalore).  And even then, they're still kind of fugly.

[Idun]

I don't have a wholehearted understanding of various "anime" styles. I prefer aesthetically pleasing styles, be it j-anime'ish or not. Creative art style is beautiful in art books and designs, but is generally limited by the graphical choices that developers render the style in. For example, I don't prefer the body concepts of HT Kim, but I do like his use of line and composition. Unfortunately his art doesn't translate well into games.

Though I do prefer more realistic styles. In-game, I prefer simplistic because apparently less is easier. I feel like Final Fantasy XII did a good job at a more realistic approach for the characters, but the edges were a bit rough.

[Grefter]

I kind of have to disagree.  Going for a realistic style can work even with aged graphics.  People will notice the low res textures, lower poly models and less complex skeletons but it is a style that can still look really good if done well.  If you want a good example load up Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind.  Now that is some arse ugly models.  Load up Farcry 1.  It has aged and you can see it, but it is still a fantastic looking game.

In all things artistic, it is less about the tools you use and more to do with how you use them.  Just going straight up photography, we have retarded megapixel cameras with some pretty crazy optical zoom.  That doesn't degrade from the artistic value of daguerreotypes in the slightest.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I have to agree with Rob, too.  And another thing that hasn't really been mentioned:  Going for realism can make your characters downright ugly.  Whether it approaches the uncanny valley too closely or just fails in another way, "realistic"ly styled games tend to have ugly ass characters.  SH kind of avoids this to an extent, but I haven't seen a Bioware/Bethesda game with aesthetically pleasing characters yet.  Well, no, there are some aesthetically pleasing characters, but they're either not human (HK-47) or completely covered in armor or something else (Tali, Mandalore).  And even then, they're still kind of fugly.

Well, there's Shepard (With Crazy Eyes).

[DjinnAndTonic]

My personal favorite style, just in terms of character design, has to be the more realistic anime styles. The Suikoden 3/5 or FE10 stuff just looks gorgeous to me. It's not so realistic that it has any of that uncanny valley stuff going on, but it's also not so deformed that I want to stab out the characters' gigantic eyes.

Yes, eyes are still overlarge, but it's not taking up 3/4 of their faces or anything. Body proportions tend to be mostly right, and even head/body ratio tends to match. Legs might be a bit long or breasts might be a bit large, but they are still within the acceptable range for an actual human. The major thing that makes this style still 'anime' are the rounded faces and crazy hair, which I personally find very appealing and it tends to keep the style away from the uncanny valley.

In the specific cases of S3/5 and FE10, the character designs are also very good at conveying something about the character's background (such as where they're from or what their position is) and has a nice unifying feel to it. The designs are also highly detailed (Lyon and Miakis' outfits are cool, just check out all the little intricacies there!), which is something I always want to convey in my own drawings.

Other styles have their merits too. As Rob pointed out, Earthbound is very distinct and has aged well. Though I'm not a particular fan of the designs, I admire what they accomplished. Disgaea and Yggdra Union, while utterly deformed, are rather charming within their own settings. However, I will note that seeing YU characters mixed in with other styles (such as in its own sequels) is really jarring. Nippon Ichi has this problem too, even within its own games. Gordon and Laharl really clash in the same scenes. Flonne and Jennifer even moreso. Etna and Vulcanus don't look like they can exist by the same laws of physics. This works decently within Disgaea's generally humorous atmosphere, but it was a lot more distracting in Phantom Brave. Luckily, Soul Nomad got a different artist (with a similar, but more slightly-more-realistic style) to keep with the tone of that game.

On the other end of the scale, Shadow Hearts, Valkyrie Profile, and Nomura art are superbly intricate, and (despite your feelings on Nomura's fashion choices) follow the laws of human anatomy and physics for the most part. They aren't quite realism due to the slightly-larger eyes and (in Nomura's case) unusual hair, but that's what keeps them artistic instead of trying to be photorealism. SH in particular exaggerates lips more than a standard anime style, which while not realistic, it acts as a balancing mechanism for the slightly overlarge anime eyes. VP style accomplishes something similar by generally giving the characters copious amounts of hair to dwarf the slightly oversized eyes (to the designer's credit, almost all of the hairstyles are physically possible too!).

For an example of how this can work out badly, look at Xenosaga 2. *shudders*

I'm going to agree with the sentiment that photorealism is pretty terrible. American games can definitely make awesome-looking characters. But... the better ones tend to be the ones with more exaggeration or less visible human features (thinking of stuff like Kratos, any of the newer Marvel superhero games, or Master Chief here.) These are still -closer- to realism than the Japanese styles, but they aren't the photorealism you see in stuff like Half-Life or Bioware RPG designs. And those just look ugly, even with all the technology at their disposal.

For reference about the IAQ stuff... if it ever approaches any kind of graphical display, we're probably stuck at the level of sprites and still portraits, so photorealism isn't something we could impress a gamer with anyway.

[VySaika]

My personal favorite style, just in terms of character design, has to be the more realistic anime styles. The Suikoden 3/5 or FE10 stuff just looks gorgeous to me. It's not so realistic that it has any of that uncanny valley stuff going on, but it's also not so deformed that I want to stab out the characters' gigantic eyes.

I'm not exactly someone with alot to say on art, but I'll agree with this bit wholeheartedly. FE 7-10, S3/5, etc, these are some of my favorite games for blatently stealing character artwork from.

[Dhyerwolf]

Trying for photorealism in a game is a fool's endeavor that, in the end, only dates your game.  What you should have is a style that, in some way, tries to be art-ish. The painted backgrounds that they used a few times in FF6 and CT aged so much better than the pre-rendered ones used for the PSX FFs now that it's ridiculous.

I agree with the generalized point, but incredibly strongly disagree with where it went. FF 9's background graphics are one of the top 3 best in RPGs to me to this day (Note to current RPGs, stop sucking at background graphics). Pre-rendered graphics are the shit, and there's only one more modern game that I definitely think beat out FF 9 in terms of background (I'd also argue that there was absolutely no attempt at being photorealistic. They drew out all aspects of the background by hand).

I don't think any particular style is the best. It's all about how much creativity and skill went into it. The peak is definitely Valkyrie Profile, where the designs are all unique, fresh, and most importantly absolutely stunning. I'd question the "most of the hairstyles can't be had." The majority of girls tend to have long, straight hair, or non-description short hair. The men vary, but no one beyond Arngrim really strikes as having unrealistic hair.

I personally think that while Fire Emblem's artist has a lot of talent, the game's structure limits creativity highly. Suikoden has groups of characters that have really specific design sets that make them highly stand out (Zexens, Queen's Knights, Karayans...etc). Beyond Laguz, I'm not sure that Fire Emblem has ever really reached that. There's a level of interchangably that really removes the art talent wise. Also, the artist seems very loathe to use any alternative armor stylings, which really doesn't help.

[Cotigo]

Eh.  The thing with Valve games is that while they try for photorealism (TF2 aside), all of their character models are based off of actual people.  Whether you find the aesthetic pleasing or not, it sets Half Life 2/L4D far, far ahead of games like KotOR.

[Idun]

I kind of have to disagree.  Going for a realistic style can work even with aged graphics.  People will notice the low res textures, lower poly models and less complex skeletons but it is a style that can still look really good if done well.  If you want a good example load up Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind.  Now that is some arse ugly models.  Load up Farcry 1.  It has aged and you can see it, but it is still a fantastic looking game.

Well really, I'm only speaking from experience from RPGs primarily for RPGs. Other genres have succeeded at really well done cohesive realistic styles. But just to continue . . .

http://www.armchairempire.com/images/Reviews/pc/elder-scrolls-iii-morrowind/elder-scrolls-III-morrowind-2.jpg
^?
That's a random image from Google. Hard edges where areas should be smooth takes away from the overall image. For example, look at the majority of the spherical objects in the room that don't have the "refined" (or meticulous) line that is generally employed in book art for games. It's not an issue of working well moreso than how forms are degraded because of the translation from paper to screen(?). I tend to see this a lot with RPG art and in-game art when they're approaching their style more naturalistic/realistic.

http://ui30.gamespot.com/1757/morrowind372_2.jpg
^
I like the modeling of her face, but I don't like the texture, shape or bulk of her hair. The styling, and rendering of her hair/armor makes her face stand out not only because of the color, but because it's inconsistent in quality.

I think Vagrant Story is a great example of a game with an art style a tad more realistic, and the in-game art resembles out-game.
http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-07/vs-sydney-losstarot.html , and http://userimage.gamespot.com/images/profile/9/9/20780160691701628063729074523099/sig_image.jpg both have the hard edge consistency, so I didn't notice the quality change too much besides apparent things like pixels and color.

.hack//REBIRTH/Whatever is a good example of good translation too. So is Breath of Fire IV. Dawn of Mana is a GREAT example, though there's less naturalistic forms - clearly stylized bodies, etc.

Legend of Legaia? Magna Carta (in a few instances)? Baaaad translations. The easier and less the detail, like Romancing SaGa? Less noticeable.

In all things artistic, it is less about the tools you use and more to do with how you use them.

I'll just have to agree to disagree here. But instead of leaving you hanging like a comma, I'll say a couple things. There's no reason Copic markers should cost 7.99 each. I can do similar stuff with various gradient Sharpie markers from .99-1.99 a pop. In many cases, the artists I know around Atlanta, studied, read about, etc. choose the tool that is most easier to create what they're looking for. Of course, they're going to employ the tool in whatever way they want. But, if they can't afford easier or don't see the benefit of it besides a change in quality, they will settle with something with similarities, signs, stylized forms to make references and things instantly recognize-able.

This is actually a great chance to bring up street art. Why? Because it's one of my favorite types of art. This isn't even directly related to what I previously said. But. It started with spray paint. Now artists are employing a wide variety of mediums and tools to achieve their artistic style. The tools enable them. Stickers make life easier. But when you see work like Dephect, or Herbert from Sao Paulo doing cool ass sticker-like graffito, it's more impressive because the actual "work" is seen. Mac looks good on anything, as long as he generally hides the surface that the medium is one. Tasso is the opposite. If there's any way I can crazily relate this to what I've said, I guess. . . .  hnnn. SaGa Frontier 2 art style? Beautiful. Environments? Beautiful. In-game rendering of that? Squished and colorful, has indicators to make things easily recognize-able, but kiiiiinda on the odd side. Environments from SF2? Beautifully translated.

[DjinnAndTonic]

The peak is definitely Valkyrie Profile, where the designs are all unique, fresh, and most importantly absolutely stunning. I'd question the "most of the hairstyles can't be had." The majority of girls tend to have long, straight hair, or non-description short hair. The men vary, but no one beyond Arngrim really strikes as having unrealistic hair.

I want to note that I actually said that about the hair. The artist draws the hair a bit larger than it should be, the actual styles are all 100% plausible. Even Arngrim's, really.

I personally think that while Fire Emblem's artist has a lot of talent, the game's structure limits creativity highly. Suikoden has groups of characters that have really specific design sets that make them highly stand out (Zexens, Queen's Knights, Karayans...etc). Beyond Laguz, I'm not sure that Fire Emblem has ever really reached that. There's a level of interchangably that really removes the art talent wise. Also, the artist seems very loathe to use any alternative armor stylings, which really doesn't help.

Well, part of this is that the artist is being limited by the game's graphical demands. The sprites for the bad army and the good army are the same, so they all wear roughly the same kind of armor.

I do notice in FE10 though, that there's a lot more variety. Look at say, Sigurd's armor. It's nothing like Titania's. And indeed, the Laguz designs all look distinctly different from the Beorc designs. And even within the Laguz subspecies, the Ravens look a lot different from the Lions, etc.

[Dhyerwolf]

VP hair is big enough to stand out? I suppose that I'm comparing to the huge hair barometers of Final Fantasy (Garnet, Zidane, Eiko, Amarant, Wakka, Tidus, Paine, Yuna-2, Vaan, Fran, Cloud, Aeris, Tifa).

Sprites and art don't necessarily line up to start with though (Prime Example: Neimi's hideous hair vs fully different length/style of the sprite). Looking at Laguz art actually lowered my impressions of the artist's creativity. Probably the prime chance for some style expansion, and throws out examples like Lethe? Felt like a big chance to really do some cool design outside his or her normal realm.

It's some weird hybrid of trying to insert some type of realism (But then giving girls who ride Pegasi super short skintight skirts!). The artist definitely has come a long way in terms of details but often lacks that zing.

Make no mistake, I think the artist is super talented and I do like the generalized style of armor. Just...almost all the FE characters basically end up blurring together to me whereass Suikoden is much better about drawing some lines between all the characters which makes them stand out far more.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Trying for photorealism in a game is a fool's endeavor that, in the end, only dates your game.  What you should have is a style that, in some way, tries to be art-ish. The painted backgrounds that they used a few times in FF6 and CT aged so much better than the pre-rendered ones used for the PSX FFs now that it's ridiculous.

I agree with the generalized point, but incredibly strongly disagree with where it went. FF 9's background graphics are one of the top 3 best in RPGs to me to this day (Note to current RPGs, stop sucking at background graphics). Pre-rendered graphics are the shit, and there's only one more modern game that I definitely think beat out FF 9 in terms of background (I'd also argue that there was absolutely no attempt at being photorealistic. They drew out all aspects of the background by hand).

FF9's world art is a mix of polygonal and pre-rendering, which really saves it (though the backdrops look really grainy now). But if you look at FF7, which has NO world geometry and is simply a pre-rendered background with invisible areas on it that determine where you can walk, and it goes to ass.

[Grefter]

More prototypical Morrowind character
http://videogamesandgaming.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/morrowind.jpg
I can't recall how the human female faces look in Morrowind (the game takes place on an island full of elves), but... yeah that one might even be modded.  Also the ugly of the models isn't really captured by still shots.  The animations are just stomach churning.

In all things artistic, it is less about the tools you use and more to do with how you use them.

I'll just have to agree to disagree here. But instead of leaving you hanging like a comma, I'll say a couple things. There's no reason Copic markers should cost 7.99 each. I can do similar stuff with various gradient Sharpie markers from .99-1.99 a pop. In many cases, the artists I know around Atlanta, studied, read about, etc. choose the tool that is most easier to create what they're looking for. Of course, they're going to employ the tool in whatever way they want. But, if they can't afford easier or don't see the benefit of it besides a change in quality, they will settle with something with similarities, signs, stylized forms to make references and things instantly recognize-able.

The quality of the tool is of course going to play a role into how easy or how preceise what you are aiming to make is.  I am talking the difference between This and This.  It isn't a question of cheap tools vs expensive tools, it is a question of completely different tools being compared.  3D animation and photorealistic stuff is using hugely different baseline architecture with what they can get away with.  Of course old realistic styles are going to look much worse, they didn't even have clear water!  That was a huge amazing development back in 2002.  HDR lighting has done amazing things for the effective use of colour pallete in these games.

Also going to pimp out the FF9 looks like arse and Temple of Elemental Evil shits all over it for prerendered backgrounds.

[Idun]

I see what you're saying. But I think there's multiple factors other than cheap or type of tools used. I was just giving a quick example. Yes a daguerrotype can compete with new school photographic mediums, but the change in polish IS noticeable.I know people can make bomb ass art with just a box. But choosing the box, the tool, is just as important in many cases. The materiality of things is very important. What I just-so-happen-to-notice is that technology generally hasn't done justice to realistic styles for console RPGs specifically. This is due to technology, the fact that concept artists generally don't have to deal with animating figures, whether or not their 2D figures are designed well for 3D translation, etc. etc.

I'm looking for the same type of consistency with artistic concept and in-game art like Okami. Beautiful game. It was probably easier because of the choice to stick to 2D forms  which would be consistent with the paper models. Edit* In short term, I think the translation from 2D to 3D tends to fuck shit up a lot of the time, which is 'duh'.

[Dhyerwolf]

Also going to pimp out the FF9 looks like arse and Temple of Elemental Evil shits all over it for prerendered backgrounds.

Quality wise, yes. Stylistically no. Since FF 9 was riding all the way on it's fantastic style, a game having better technical graphics doesn't mean too much.

[Grefter]

ToEE uses some really nice hand painted backgrounds, nothing really technically superior or anything (And also just a stylistic taste difference, FF9 didn't really do much for me in any of the art departments.  Lindblum is probably the best there and it still, just eh for some reason).

[Anthony Edward Stark]

ToEE uses some really nice hand painted backgrounds, nothing really technically superior or anything (And also just a stylistic taste difference, FF9 didn't really do much for me in any of the art departments.  Lindblum is probably the best there and it still, just eh for some reason).

Well, it was designed with, like, 32 inch standard definition TVs in mind, because that was the baseline. The thing about pre-rendered anythings in general is that they age in two ways at the same time: from both the increase of expectations and the advance of video hardware.

If you're playing Fallout 3, and you have a small monitor that only supports 800x600, well, you're playing at 800x600. You get a better monitor, you can see more of the game world around you. If FO3 used pre-rendering visuals, you'd still be looking at an 800x600 image, but it would be stretched to 1600x1200.

[Grefter]

That is an advantage to playing FF9 on an emulator, I can play it in its native resolution in a smaller window.  No stretching or anything involved, you see the textures just as they were originally intended (albeit smaller, but that is not a real worry).  The aesthetic of the backgrounds just isn't my style.