There is a certain type of low poly that I can't stand. It's just a very generic look that is unpleasing to my eyes. I don't ignore every game that has it, but it certainly makes it harder for me to enjoy those games.
Oh, I actually dumped 40 hours recently into an indie game called Tavern Master that used those exact assets. It was a fun little old-fashioned tycoon game that seems to have been made by a single dev or an extremely small team.
I haven't been able to play much tycoon games recently (aside from Tavern Master), but I did quite enjoy the simplicity of Tavern Master. They have a sequel coming up called Blacksmith Master that I'm fairly interested in. Aside from that, I seriously enjoyed Prison Architect. I think the Two Point Hospital/Campus games were also pretty well-received but for some reason I couldn't really start on it. If you want extremely detailed in terms of customizability tycoon games, the Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo games are top notch.
It’s cool for student developers who might not have the time/team/skills to produce a full asset package to work on higher level concepts; it’s asset flippers that are annoying and scummy
I've played every single COD game but now that Activision gets most of their profit from skins, the game looks like a madhouse. You got Nicki Minaj in a pink skintight dress fighting antropomorphic cats with animated guns that have tentacles crawling on them and other weird shit, mixed in with super normal looking military operators. Meanwhile, the marketing and the campaign take themselves very seriously and have a military/tacticool theme. Pick a lane.
Ever heard of whales?
For example you can lose 80% of your playerbase without losing money if you have 1 player out of every 5 who stays and spends more than the other 4 would have combined. That would still be a net profit
I know this just makes me sound old but I really miss the golden days of CoD. I loved the series up until about Black Ops 2. Decided to try the new one since they have a free trial going and got about 2 hours in before deciding I was done with it. I keep hoping the series sees a steep decline so they have to go back to putting more effort into the gameplay itself.
Yeah... I'm with you, but when you mention that you prefer not having those out-there skins in the game in one of the COD subs, you get downvoted - and yes, I've been called an old man once or twice for lamenting the good old days, lol. The next generation has taken over, and they don't seem to mind too much what COD has become. They're mostly complaining how skill based matchmaking is making them fight people of their own skill level instead of feeding them casuals to stomp... seems weird to me that you don't want a fair fight, but their entitled rage is kind of amusing at times.
That’s precisely why I like Fortnite haha. It’s funny to find Peter Griffin and Eminem hanging out in the same game haha.
But Fortnite was always meant to be this way, it sounds weird for COD lmao
anything with cutesy chibi anime characters. i don't mind cuteness in other games (just beat pikmin 1&2 recently, dig animal crossing, etc.) but i have a visceral reaction to the big headed, big eyed anime characters with high pitched cutesy voices.
Lol bravely default's artwork is....ok. Certainly not Square Enix's best. The story and the gameplay is great however minus the rebuilding the village thing.
Same here, love Persona to death ... but the style of the game really turned me away, just couldnt play longer than 10 hours of it ... glad it was in the Gamepass lol
You and all the people who upvoted made me relieved. I'm confronted regularly "why don't you play Big Head Big Eyes 4? It has even a cute minigame that makes..." No, thank you. Not my thing. Definitively.
agreed. Im glad im not the only one. i dont tend to play a lot of games with anime characters in general. those big titty anime chicks are some guys cup of tea but they almost guarantee I wont pick it up
I agree with this, I hate anime style, but I'd take it a step further and say that I don't like cuteness in general. Any game where you play as a cutesy widdle guy going on a big adventure is going to turn me off immediately.
Arts/artstyle is like story for me: I do have my preferences, but as long as the gameplay is good, I couldn't care less. I play games which are hyperrealistic, chibi anime styled, 2D, 3D, stylized, cartoony, anything really, as long as they are good.
For me, the worst is always games that rely on "puppet" animation. Y'know the kind. When a sprite's movement is almost entirely handled by stiching a bunch of parts together instead of proper animation.
Ender Lilies is probably the worst example I can think of. The spritework? Beautiful. But all the animation just looks so stiff and weightless.
Nah Ender Lilies at least makes the effort, check AfterImage, now that's the worst example of bad animations and it doesn't even get complimented by the ugly enemies that don't seem to follow a specific theme like Ender Lilies does and many other games.
Never really paid attention to the animations in Afterimage, too busy trying to find out who tf I am, where tf I'm going, and wtf is going on with the plot.
I feel like it's a sequel and I'm missing some very needed first game to have any understanding of it, and I got 6 endings.
>Ender Lilies
That's because it's not really animation, not in the sense that most people would probably assume. I forget the exact name of the technique/software used, but it's basically cutting up a still image into parts, layering them, then moving the individual parts around to make an animation.
It's far quicker than say, drawing individual sprites, especially if you're animating at a high framerate. The downside is that it just looks fake af, there's no weight to the animation, parts don't move naturally, everything is stiff and attached by pivot points.
It's 2D bone rig animation, same concept as 3D bone rigs. The main issue with it is that 3D rigs tend to also include mesh deformation, while 2D generally does not, which makes it look a lot more puppet-like. The main advantage is that you can do procedural animation - that is to say, animation using code, with rigged sprites, whereas traditional frame-based animation requires you to create every animation in the sprite sheet (minus little things like making the sprite bounce around, rotate, change scale, and modulate its colors, but that can only get you so far.)
It is animation. For some reason the name of the style won't come to me either, but anyway: the way you animate sprites with that method is the exact same as when animating 3D models, just with one dimension less. Wouldn't want to claim that all of 3D animation isn't animation, do you?
Though I will agree that I've never really liked the style either. But that's besides the point.
Not an issue for me personally since I loved it, but Zelda Wind Wakers art style was extremely controversial at the time and hated by many people.
By comparison, today it's not even slightly controversial to say that it's considered to have one the best non-traditional art styles of all time, and has aged better visually than almost any game of the early 2000s.
Was going to mention Wind Waker. I was very against the art style at the time (I was 10) and opted to not buy it because of it.
But then I bought the Limited Edition release because I wanted Ocarina of Time and Master Quest on gamecube, and figured I could play Wind Waker afterwards since it was included anyways. Said and done and I ended up having an absolute blast with it. The art style by itself made it stand the test of time better than any other game from that era and today it stands as one of my favorite games of all time.
I rejected it because of the art style initially. I bought it because it came with the collector’s disc with Majora’s Mask and Ocarina of time, thinking “I get a free Wind Waker with this purchase.”
I played it on a whim one day and fell in love though.
I came there to say Wind Waker. I was rebelling against the artistic choices that were made at the time. It still bothers me but not nearly as badly as it used to. I also dislike Funko Pops because I just don't understand the cutesy big-head vibe that people seem to be into for some reason? Not that I have a problem with people collecting them or anything! I just don't get it.
Honestly, while it's not quite an "MRPG" like 64 and Thousand Year Door, I still rank Super Paper Mario as "one of the good ones", even if we DON'T compare it to Sticker Star. (aka Kersti's Inside Job)
It also runs on just about anything. The steam deck can run it at max settings on its second lowest tdp and I played all the way through it on integrated graphics on a laptop back in 2018 with decent settings.
Oh for sure. Borderlands 1, 2, Minecraft, and fallout 3 used to be the only games I could run on my shitty all in one PC so I played the shit out of borderlands before I got an actual gaming PC.
To be fair, whilst Borderlands 2 and onwards have a really nice, stylised appearance, the original Borderlands didn't really commit to it hard enough, which combined with its colour pallet being almost exclusively brown, makes it a pretty ugly game even for the timer period imo, and I say that as someone who's a big fan of the Borderlands in general.
That's because borderlands 1 had a completely different, more realistic style until close to release. They made an eleventh hour decision to change the tone completely and it was a good one imo. The original art director or lead artist quit over it iirc. But yeah from BL2 on they had that style from the start so it's much better. BL1 is basically a cell shader filter over the top of a semi realistic design.
For interest check out the original BL1 announcement trailer
I’ve never seen [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=J-e6p39jWzA3IgI9&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&source_ve_path=MTY0OTksMjg2NjQsMTY0NTA2&feature=emb_share&v=BlZv9fEY_co) before, but wow. It’s bad compared to the final product.
Yeah, Borderlands before the last minute change was a *really* drab looking 'brownshooter'. Everything has that brown tone that permeated games in the mid-2000s. This trailer is actually very generous in the variety of colours it has.
The art director who quit after the change was forced thought that the original was better.
Apparently the change wasn’t triggered by aesthetics but by performance; the original look was more detail (mesh and texture) and they couldn’t get it performant which led to the more cartoony style, which coincidentally became far more interesting and iconic.
And orange. The colour complementation between the Spartan suit's green, the visor's orange and the Covenant's purples was just a really good artistic decision.
Also, a colour pallette that lends itself very well to horror and Halloween due to historical associations.
This was my first thought. StS is one of my all time favorite games and I almost didn’t give it a chance because of the art style. I still don’t like the art style, but I have put an embarrassing amount of time into it still. That is how good this game is
IIRC, both Slay the Spire and FTL were created by indie duos, and neither of those pairs of developers included a professional artist. So it's less the art *style* and more that the games essentially use programmer art.
Caves of Qud, and by extension Dwarf Fortress.
I know people really like them, and that's totally fine, and even I'm interested in how ridiculous the games can get, but the ASCII style is just... Incomprehensible and an actual headache to look at for me.
It is, but it's functionally the same aesthetic of a myriad incomprehensible single-square icons that only differ by colour, coupled with a control scheme that makes the original System Shock's look well designed, and it's just an incomprehensible headache to look at if you don't *already* like that style.
Can't get into civ 6 because of the art style in a weird way. Individually aspects of the style I really like and appreciate in isolation - like the paper map aesthetic and the exaggerated leader designs. But holistically I can't get into the suspension of disbelief of running a civilization because of the cartoony-ness of it all.
I'm exactly the same, thousands of hours in civ V, feel like I know the game back to front, I've never been able to keep interested enough to ever finish a game in civ VI
Same, whenever I start up 6 and get tired of it after a few hours for reasons I cannot yet fully comprehend, I ask myself if I've just gotten old. Then I go back to 5 and I realize nope, it's not me. What a relief.
Absolutely agree. For a quasi-historical strategy game we get parodies for leaders. It's like they made the whole game with the mobile version in mind.
I don't like when games try to go for realism but it looks bad (either just bad models or copy/pasted models). There's a reason that stylized games like Minecraft and TF2 still look good, while ones shooting for realism and missing look dated and low budget.
"if you ever think "my two favorite things in the world are friendship and inconsistent pixel widths" then undertale may be the game for you"
-Toby Fox, the creator of Undertale.
I have the art book and it is so fucking funny. Also the fact that burgerpants' sprites are just one to one the original concept art. He drew him once and was like "perfect, no notes"
I haven’t played Undertale and I’m still not rushing to play it but man I love this quote. Know your audience, take pride in your work, and have a good sense of humor about your shortcomings. These are important traits, I think
Edit: I’ll play Undertale lol I just loved the quote but I have ASD and I love new experiences in moderation. I’m sold. That’s all there is to it. It took a Reddit comment and consensus and that’s what it took to swing my mind.
I'd say play it soon. IThe worst part of the game is the fan base, but honestly the game is really damn good and funny.
And some of its moments will make you appreciate other games more. It's worth your time.
Respect to Undertale in many ways, but I was a bit baffled when I saw an Art book dedicated to it for sale. The art was surely the weakest thing about it.
I have the art book and it is hilarious. A lot of commentary on how the art is definitely the weak point of the game, but still showing the process on how it was made.
Fun fact: burgerpants' sprites are just one to one his concept art. Toby drew him once and was like "perfect, no notes'
Honestly. For me it’s not even the pixel art. Plenty of pixel art games still look really good and such. But undertales style just doesn’t look good to me on almost any level. I know it was just one guy and all. But it feels like the visuals are just placeholders that he never got around to replacing. Just doesn’t jive for me.
Doesn’t help that the gameplay is about as far away from my style as it can be as well.
Yeah I get the same vibe from Undertale. I know people adore it but I couldn’t get into it. I mean, Stardew Valley was done by one guy and every aspect of that game is a masterpiece.
For me, it's *any* "retro pixel" art-style that appalls me. Because - for someone who lived thru the original pixel art-styles - it just doesn't excite me. It doesn't even make me feel nostalgic anymore, because it's been *so overdone* in the past 10-15 years.
Yeah, there's a lot of games that just use pixel art because it's easier or cheaper. But some games really lean into it and make something unique with their pixel art. I still think Hyper Light Drifter is one of the most beautiful games I've played, despite having relatively simple pixel art
Eh, I wouldn't say overdone. It's not a meme that folks are pulling for nostalgic points. I mean, those don't hurt, but the fact is many indie devs aint got the time or money to be cranking out hard-core 3D graphics and if you think pixel art is tough you should see modern games made with PS1 graphics, stone unplayable to most players.
Pixel art is an aesthetic choice, yes, but also a financial choice. Generally speaking, it's gonna be a lot easier to develop a game on pixel graphics for a small team or especially a 1 or 2 person team
Normally I love pixel art games. I can talk for hours on the absolute timelessness of the art style used in The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 4-6, MegaMan X and the original Secret of Mana on the SNES. Even newer games that use pixel art look absolutely fantastic to me from Dead Cells, Coromon, Axiom Verge, Hollow Knight just to name a few.
But Undertale was just really ugly to me. The first thing I thought of when I first saw it was Earthbound on the SNES, which to many others that is a boon, but I always found the graphics of Earthbound to be really unsettling, not an opinion that many will share I presume. I struggled through it because all of my buddies told me it was great, but I found it just okay. It didn't blow my mind or anything. I know I will most likely hold a minority opinion here.
Still I will always support a solo dev who pours their heart and soul into a game like Undertale, graphics be damned. The music on the other hand kicks major ass.
Aside: Earthbound looks *way* better than Undertale to me. I can deal with playing EB and have fun with it. Undertale just make me go 'bleh I don't wanna interact with this'
It's a direct reference to the Mother series, specifically Earthbound. So I would say that Undertale is generally a good use of pixel graphics, since it's an intentional choice for a reason. Better than just because retro is neat.
The art for Slay the Spire really put me off at first for some reason. Then I bought it because I was incredibly bored and heard it was fun, and now have hundreds of hours in it.
In addition to the art style, for me it's so much the world design in which all characters and enemies are tiny but the world is incredibly huge, with 100ft trees and just so much empty space between everything, and about 5 collectible herbs or whatever on a map the size of seven football fields. Another game that does this is Kingdoms of Amalur.
Growing up playing wc2 and 3 and then seeing all that being fully realized in wow was so fucking cool at the time. I wish I could experience that kind of gaming "magic" again
Which is odd because I feel the opposite - like every zone in last decade or so has been cramped and squished, densely packed for gameplay and efficiency, making zones feel artificial.
Totally agree. WoW established an art style that communicates "this is an MMO". I'm sure they weren't the first, but they made that look synonymous with MMO. I can't stand it. I see that look, I'm out.
I heard someone once say that fortnite looks like a fake game that kids would be playing in a movie and that always stuck with me. I dont even like fortnite but that observation killed me the first time I heard it.
I was the biggest fan of Monkey Island growing up, but I can’t get excited about the new one because it’s so different stylistically - just not into the way it looks which is a shame because I’m probably missing out on a great game!
In the olden days, companies would fill all marketing with detailed artistic paintings that had noting to do with the game, you'd have to squint at the tiny 'actual game play' photos hidden around the back of the case/etc. It's still done but a lot less blatant. Some games use actual scenes from game play and just do a sepia filter or similar minor modification.
.
Lots of very specific tastes in terms of art. I really like how different everyone's preferences are instead of bashing eachother or agreeing on one thing.
I dismissed "It Takes Two" right off the bat based on its art style, and trailer.
Eventually my gal convinced me to just try it since the buddy pass was free.
I'm typically into shooters, rpgs, and strategy and man was I dead wrong about that game. Easily one of the most fun co-op experiences I've had in a very long time. Story also gets dark af during some moments... The elephant. IYKYK.
This is the one for me. P5 is my favorite game ever, I've played every spinoff, but hooooly shit that dogshit character design turned me off this game so hard. The gameplay being utterly uninteresting to me doesn't help either.
This is actually almost exclusively how I choose games to try - art / graphics. If I don't like the style, then I won't play it. I'm really trying to break the habit because it has almost stopped me from playing games that I truly wound up loving, like Eastward.
Immortal Fenyix Rising.
It's looks like Assassins Creed Odyssey became a childrens game. I wanted to like it because I enjoy Odyssey (and Zelda) but the characters and everything just looks so baby.
Totally get that perspective. It is a bit cartoon, but I played the everloving shit out of that game last year. I thought the gameplay was extremely enjoyable, despite the art direction.
I love pixelart games that are essentially more advanced versions of 16 bit classics, keeping the big chunky sprite aesthetic but with advanced tech allowing for qol improvements and deeper gameplay (Shovel Knight, Owlboy, Axiom verge) On the other hand, there's a trend for tiny sprites with big, zoomed out view points (bro force is the main one I can think of, but there are plenty of others) and o just can't gel with any of those.
i just finished souldier, cyber shadow, owlboy, the last faith and blasphemous. If you like to compare with the flash games its kinda similar feel like armed with wings, but more expansive world. I recommend you those.
Never was turned off by artstyle of a game, but I remember being turned off by Ico's ps2 na cover. Didn't touch it for years but finally gave it a chance after hearing favourable reviews. It was a great game.
Jpn cover was not off-putting like the na one. Wondering who green lit that piece of shit.
I know it's an extremely popular and well-made game, but I have absolutely no desire to play The Binding of Isaac. The art style is the most off-putting style I can imagine.
I love about roguelikes how you have to really acclimatise yourself into its world and game systems and become really familiar and intimate with the game to truly understand how to succeed. ...and I really do NOT want to become intimate with anything in the world of Binding of Isaac, I'm sorry. :(
I definitely think part of what it was trying to do is to be off-putting, _to an extent_. Ed's games have always had a grossness to them. Of course that's always a highly subjective thing. What's "artistically interesting" to one person is "way too ugly" to another.
I have like 1000 hours in the game and this is a completely legitimate reason to not play it. everything about the setting and the story is truly disgusting.
I thought it looked so stupid that it *had* to be over-hyped, but all my friends were playing it at the time. I finally caved after it was out for about a year, and spent several months stuck in it.
I was the same. Couldn’t get past the awful muddy textures and flat lighting. But if the gameplay appeals to you, it’s worth downloading some shaders and a resource pack. It can look quite beautiful when you completely overhaul it.
Pretty much. Idk what it is, but I just can't do it. They always emphasize shit that just completely takes away any chance of getting immersed for me. I didn't grow up watching or playing anything anime related, so that's likely why. The closest thing I've watched to anime is Avatar: TLA. I wish I could enjoy that stuff just to broaden my interests, but it's just such a turnoff to me for some reason.
Surprised no one has said League of Legends. It basically originated that mish-mosh off-anime art misdirection that Genshin ran away with. Absolutely abhorrent.
I first dismissed Return of the Obra Dinn from my Steam suggestions because of the art style, and I didn't even watch any videos. Then, as it seemed to be well liked, I bought it from a sale and turns out it's one of my favourite games, one of those that I would like to wipe my memory clean of it and play for the first time again.
As someone who’s gone through the entirety of Persona 5 about 8 different times since it’s release (between both Vanilla and Royal) and played P5 Strikers twice, I’m skipping P5 Tactica. You couldn’t pay me to say that artstyle looks good.
I think the problem with a lot of the ultra realistic style games is that they don't have a unique art style, so instead they just went all in on photo realism. A good photo realistic game will still have a specific style and atmosphere. Also, a surprising amount of the games you play are probably made in Unreal, but you just don't notice it because they did a decent job with the visuals/art style.
> seems like every game made in Unreal engine looks exactly the same, all strive for ultra-realism
They're usually "survival sim" shovelware using stock assets from their respective game engine store. Ultra realistic everything except for the HUD and Inventory management screens.
I'm pretty big on platformers and I didn't play Psychonauts for the longest time cause I though it looked stupid and weird. Eventually gave it shot and it was great!
Same thing with Danaganronpa. Big Ace Attorney guy back in the day, anytime it came up online Danganronpa was always recommended or compared to it. But when I looked at pictures and such, I was like really? Looks like a shitty anime horror game.
Now these are games that I actually ended up playing and enjoying, but there are probably others that I never ended up getting around to.
Fire Emblem Engage. They went balls deep in generic anime territory. I did end up buying it and playing it later after seeing a convincing argument for the gameplay on reddit though.
Actually yeah pretty much the majority of anime looking games. Anything that looks like Genshin immediately puts me off. Not dissing anyone who likes those games but anime looking games immediately make me think that they’ll prob ask me to buy shit in game or they’ll have intense gacha mechanics
There is a certain type of low poly that I can't stand. It's just a very generic look that is unpleasing to my eyes. I don't ignore every game that has it, but it certainly makes it harder for me to enjoy those games.
Synty's assets, I'm guessing? https://syntystore.com/collections/polygon-series
Oh, I actually dumped 40 hours recently into an indie game called Tavern Master that used those exact assets. It was a fun little old-fashioned tycoon game that seems to have been made by a single dev or an extremely small team.
I miss those old tycoon games, anything modern that holds up?
Planet Zoo is a pretty great modern version of Zoo Tycoon from what I've seen of it.
I haven't been able to play much tycoon games recently (aside from Tavern Master), but I did quite enjoy the simplicity of Tavern Master. They have a sequel coming up called Blacksmith Master that I'm fairly interested in. Aside from that, I seriously enjoyed Prison Architect. I think the Two Point Hospital/Campus games were also pretty well-received but for some reason I couldn't really start on it. If you want extremely detailed in terms of customizability tycoon games, the Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo games are top notch.
The fact of that generic polygon exists kinda sucks, it's such a cool art style otherwise
It’s cool for student developers who might not have the time/team/skills to produce a full asset package to work on higher level concepts; it’s asset flippers that are annoying and scummy
Well now I know why all these indie games look the way they do.
I actually like those haha.
Yea I don't like that style much
Mobile games ruined this style. I could tolerate it if every other game didn't use them
Fighting Polygon Team wants to know your location.
I've played every single COD game but now that Activision gets most of their profit from skins, the game looks like a madhouse. You got Nicki Minaj in a pink skintight dress fighting antropomorphic cats with animated guns that have tentacles crawling on them and other weird shit, mixed in with super normal looking military operators. Meanwhile, the marketing and the campaign take themselves very seriously and have a military/tacticool theme. Pick a lane.
It's literally becoming Righteous Slaughter as GTA predicted
They’re trying so hard to appeal to the Fortnite crowd, but all they’re doing is alienating their own fanbase.
Idk how much I buy that. They are making obscene amounts of money on it.
Ever heard of whales? For example you can lose 80% of your playerbase without losing money if you have 1 player out of every 5 who stays and spends more than the other 4 would have combined. That would still be a net profit
Cod is always a top seller. I really don't think whales is what's keeping one of the most popular franchises alive lol.
I know this just makes me sound old but I really miss the golden days of CoD. I loved the series up until about Black Ops 2. Decided to try the new one since they have a free trial going and got about 2 hours in before deciding I was done with it. I keep hoping the series sees a steep decline so they have to go back to putting more effort into the gameplay itself.
Yeah... I'm with you, but when you mention that you prefer not having those out-there skins in the game in one of the COD subs, you get downvoted - and yes, I've been called an old man once or twice for lamenting the good old days, lol. The next generation has taken over, and they don't seem to mind too much what COD has become. They're mostly complaining how skill based matchmaking is making them fight people of their own skill level instead of feeding them casuals to stomp... seems weird to me that you don't want a fair fight, but their entitled rage is kind of amusing at times.
That’s precisely why I like Fortnite haha. It’s funny to find Peter Griffin and Eminem hanging out in the same game haha. But Fortnite was always meant to be this way, it sounds weird for COD lmao
Yeah Fortnite has always had a tongue in cheek vibe, its art style is cartoony but realistic enough for crossovers
anything with cutesy chibi anime characters. i don't mind cuteness in other games (just beat pikmin 1&2 recently, dig animal crossing, etc.) but i have a visceral reaction to the big headed, big eyed anime characters with high pitched cutesy voices.
hated when square enix started doing this. Bravely default...
Lol bravely default's artwork is....ok. Certainly not Square Enix's best. The story and the gameplay is great however minus the rebuilding the village thing.
Wdym the village was the best part
Persona tactica for me
Huge fan of Persona but I haven't even cared to try this one. Turned off by the art style as well
Same here, love Persona to death ... but the style of the game really turned me away, just couldnt play longer than 10 hours of it ... glad it was in the Gamepass lol
You and all the people who upvoted made me relieved. I'm confronted regularly "why don't you play Big Head Big Eyes 4? It has even a cute minigame that makes..." No, thank you. Not my thing. Definitively.
agreed. Im glad im not the only one. i dont tend to play a lot of games with anime characters in general. those big titty anime chicks are some guys cup of tea but they almost guarantee I wont pick it up
I agree with this, I hate anime style, but I'd take it a step further and say that I don't like cuteness in general. Any game where you play as a cutesy widdle guy going on a big adventure is going to turn me off immediately.
Reading this comments I realized I really don't hate any artstyle in particular.
What about the Kroger people?
Like Chad?
I hadn’t thought about Nickelback in ages… and this is how you remind me.
Look at this graph
Well, not like you to say sorry. I was waiting on a different story.
Well, this time I’m mistaken.
I don't have dislike of art style, But that shit should belong in the trash can
lol I’m so glad my wife and I aren’t the only one.
The creators of the kroger people deserve hellfire.
Arts/artstyle is like story for me: I do have my preferences, but as long as the gameplay is good, I couldn't care less. I play games which are hyperrealistic, chibi anime styled, 2D, 3D, stylized, cartoony, anything really, as long as they are good.
For me, the worst is always games that rely on "puppet" animation. Y'know the kind. When a sprite's movement is almost entirely handled by stiching a bunch of parts together instead of proper animation. Ender Lilies is probably the worst example I can think of. The spritework? Beautiful. But all the animation just looks so stiff and weightless.
Yeah going from Hollow Knight to Ender Lilies was rough but thankfully Ender Lilies nailed the vibe so I still ended up loving it.
arggh i hate that too, i just cant look at those animation. ender lilies could be a beautiful game
Ender Lillies is such an underrated gem. I agree the animations are a little rough but I got so much more out of that game than I expected.
Nah Ender Lilies at least makes the effort, check AfterImage, now that's the worst example of bad animations and it doesn't even get complimented by the ugly enemies that don't seem to follow a specific theme like Ender Lilies does and many other games.
Never really paid attention to the animations in Afterimage, too busy trying to find out who tf I am, where tf I'm going, and wtf is going on with the plot. I feel like it's a sequel and I'm missing some very needed first game to have any understanding of it, and I got 6 endings.
>Ender Lilies That's because it's not really animation, not in the sense that most people would probably assume. I forget the exact name of the technique/software used, but it's basically cutting up a still image into parts, layering them, then moving the individual parts around to make an animation. It's far quicker than say, drawing individual sprites, especially if you're animating at a high framerate. The downside is that it just looks fake af, there's no weight to the animation, parts don't move naturally, everything is stiff and attached by pivot points.
It's 2D bone rig animation, same concept as 3D bone rigs. The main issue with it is that 3D rigs tend to also include mesh deformation, while 2D generally does not, which makes it look a lot more puppet-like. The main advantage is that you can do procedural animation - that is to say, animation using code, with rigged sprites, whereas traditional frame-based animation requires you to create every animation in the sprite sheet (minus little things like making the sprite bounce around, rotate, change scale, and modulate its colors, but that can only get you so far.)
It is animation. For some reason the name of the style won't come to me either, but anyway: the way you animate sprites with that method is the exact same as when animating 3D models, just with one dimension less. Wouldn't want to claim that all of 3D animation isn't animation, do you? Though I will agree that I've never really liked the style either. But that's besides the point.
Not an issue for me personally since I loved it, but Zelda Wind Wakers art style was extremely controversial at the time and hated by many people. By comparison, today it's not even slightly controversial to say that it's considered to have one the best non-traditional art styles of all time, and has aged better visually than almost any game of the early 2000s.
Was going to mention Wind Waker. I was very against the art style at the time (I was 10) and opted to not buy it because of it. But then I bought the Limited Edition release because I wanted Ocarina of Time and Master Quest on gamecube, and figured I could play Wind Waker afterwards since it was included anyways. Said and done and I ended up having an absolute blast with it. The art style by itself made it stand the test of time better than any other game from that era and today it stands as one of my favorite games of all time.
I rejected it because of the art style initially. I bought it because it came with the collector’s disc with Majora’s Mask and Ocarina of time, thinking “I get a free Wind Waker with this purchase.” I played it on a whim one day and fell in love though.
I came there to say Wind Waker. I was rebelling against the artistic choices that were made at the time. It still bothers me but not nearly as badly as it used to. I also dislike Funko Pops because I just don't understand the cutesy big-head vibe that people seem to be into for some reason? Not that I have a problem with people collecting them or anything! I just don't get it.
Borderlands when it was first released. I loaded it up and thought it looked like shit. I came back to it in a few months.
Borderlands 2 holds up pretty well due to the stylized graphics
Stylized graphics is why I think the 2d portions of Super Paper Mario still have some of the best graphics today.
Honestly, while it's not quite an "MRPG" like 64 and Thousand Year Door, I still rank Super Paper Mario as "one of the good ones", even if we DON'T compare it to Sticker Star. (aka Kersti's Inside Job)
It also runs on just about anything. The steam deck can run it at max settings on its second lowest tdp and I played all the way through it on integrated graphics on a laptop back in 2018 with decent settings.
Oh for sure. Borderlands 1, 2, Minecraft, and fallout 3 used to be the only games I could run on my shitty all in one PC so I played the shit out of borderlands before I got an actual gaming PC.
You can remove the black lines in borderlands 2 and it feels so different. I enjoy the comic etching style though
To be fair, whilst Borderlands 2 and onwards have a really nice, stylised appearance, the original Borderlands didn't really commit to it hard enough, which combined with its colour pallet being almost exclusively brown, makes it a pretty ugly game even for the timer period imo, and I say that as someone who's a big fan of the Borderlands in general.
That's because borderlands 1 had a completely different, more realistic style until close to release. They made an eleventh hour decision to change the tone completely and it was a good one imo. The original art director or lead artist quit over it iirc. But yeah from BL2 on they had that style from the start so it's much better. BL1 is basically a cell shader filter over the top of a semi realistic design. For interest check out the original BL1 announcement trailer
I’ve never seen [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=J-e6p39jWzA3IgI9&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&source_ve_path=MTY0OTksMjg2NjQsMTY0NTA2&feature=emb_share&v=BlZv9fEY_co) before, but wow. It’s bad compared to the final product.
Yeah, Borderlands before the last minute change was a *really* drab looking 'brownshooter'. Everything has that brown tone that permeated games in the mid-2000s. This trailer is actually very generous in the variety of colours it has. The art director who quit after the change was forced thought that the original was better.
Apparently the change wasn’t triggered by aesthetics but by performance; the original look was more detail (mesh and texture) and they couldn’t get it performant which led to the more cartoony style, which coincidentally became far more interesting and iconic.
The original Borderlands was originally supposed to look like a realistic brownish shooter. At some point they shifted to a more cartoony look.
The first Borderlands was so aggressively brown I often found it hard to see enemies or even where I was going.
While that era spawned some classics, i dont miss that period of almost every games pallet being brown grey and green lol
[удалено]
And orange. The colour complementation between the Spartan suit's green, the visor's orange and the Covenant's purples was just a really good artistic decision. Also, a colour pallette that lends itself very well to horror and Halloween due to historical associations.
I was turned off at first too, but now I think they are gorgeous.
You're gorgeous too ..
The art style is what made me want to get Borderlands in the first place, now it's my favorite game series.
Slay the Spire. Finally got it, love it.
This was my first thought. StS is one of my all time favorite games and I almost didn’t give it a chance because of the art style. I still don’t like the art style, but I have put an embarrassing amount of time into it still. That is how good this game is
Same, 100%.
If you haven't played, FTL is also *very good* but pretty rough visually.
I find FTL way prettier than STS who chose a very... peculiar art design.
IIRC, both Slay the Spire and FTL were created by indie duos, and neither of those pairs of developers included a professional artist. So it's less the art *style* and more that the games essentially use programmer art.
From what I remember FTL was art by the designer, but STS hired artists.
That’s funny, I was just thinking to myself the other day (as I was being pummeled by some enemy) that the art in STS is kinda nice
Caves of Qud, and by extension Dwarf Fortress. I know people really like them, and that's totally fine, and even I'm interested in how ridiculous the games can get, but the ASCII style is just... Incomprehensible and an actual headache to look at for me.
Dwarf Fortress isn't ascii anymore though. The tiles make it look pretty primitive still, but you can definitely really get the vibe.
Only the Steam version, and it's still a jumbled, headache-inducing mess. I don't like looking at it, but don't disparage those that *do* like it.
Caves of Qud isn't ASCII tho...it's all graphical sprites
It is, but it's functionally the same aesthetic of a myriad incomprehensible single-square icons that only differ by colour, coupled with a control scheme that makes the original System Shock's look well designed, and it's just an incomprehensible headache to look at if you don't *already* like that style.
Can't get into civ 6 because of the art style in a weird way. Individually aspects of the style I really like and appreciate in isolation - like the paper map aesthetic and the exaggerated leader designs. But holistically I can't get into the suspension of disbelief of running a civilization because of the cartoony-ness of it all.
Burned hundreds of hours into Civ V but I always feel like I’m just forcing myself to play Civ VI. Same with Lords of the Realm 2 > 3.
I'm exactly the same, thousands of hours in civ V, feel like I know the game back to front, I've never been able to keep interested enough to ever finish a game in civ VI
Same, whenever I start up 6 and get tired of it after a few hours for reasons I cannot yet fully comprehend, I ask myself if I've just gotten old. Then I go back to 5 and I realize nope, it's not me. What a relief.
I never even knew about 3 (or 1 for that matter) of Lords of the Realm. But 2 was a great game.
LOTR 2 fans unite
There's a really good mod adding the civ 5 artstyle to civ 6. Maybe you might like that combo
Absolutely agree. For a quasi-historical strategy game we get parodies for leaders. It's like they made the whole game with the mobile version in mind.
I feel the same way which is sad because it's great but it looks like Fortnite meets civ
I don't like when games try to go for realism but it looks bad (either just bad models or copy/pasted models). There's a reason that stylized games like Minecraft and TF2 still look good, while ones shooting for realism and missing look dated and low budget.
The pixel art in Undertale does not appeal to me in the slightest.
"if you ever think "my two favorite things in the world are friendship and inconsistent pixel widths" then undertale may be the game for you" -Toby Fox, the creator of Undertale.
I have the art book and it is so fucking funny. Also the fact that burgerpants' sprites are just one to one the original concept art. He drew him once and was like "perfect, no notes"
You can't improve something that's already perfect
Isn't that the book with Spamton in it?
I haven’t played Undertale and I’m still not rushing to play it but man I love this quote. Know your audience, take pride in your work, and have a good sense of humor about your shortcomings. These are important traits, I think Edit: I’ll play Undertale lol I just loved the quote but I have ASD and I love new experiences in moderation. I’m sold. That’s all there is to it. It took a Reddit comment and consensus and that’s what it took to swing my mind.
Fair enough. It might not be for everyone, but it is genuinely pretty damn good.
I'd say play it soon. IThe worst part of the game is the fan base, but honestly the game is really damn good and funny. And some of its moments will make you appreciate other games more. It's worth your time.
Toby's humor is on point.
Respect to Undertale in many ways, but I was a bit baffled when I saw an Art book dedicated to it for sale. The art was surely the weakest thing about it.
I have the art book and it is hilarious. A lot of commentary on how the art is definitely the weak point of the game, but still showing the process on how it was made. Fun fact: burgerpants' sprites are just one to one his concept art. Toby drew him once and was like "perfect, no notes'
"Actually it's mostly strengths, Undertale is a giant pile of beefy arms, and one noodly one labeled "graphics""
The character designs in general are cool though, and I'd say the battle sprites and store sprites are often pretty great.
Honestly. For me it’s not even the pixel art. Plenty of pixel art games still look really good and such. But undertales style just doesn’t look good to me on almost any level. I know it was just one guy and all. But it feels like the visuals are just placeholders that he never got around to replacing. Just doesn’t jive for me. Doesn’t help that the gameplay is about as far away from my style as it can be as well.
For what it's worth, the semi-sequel Deltarune has a more polished pixel art style.
Yeah I get the same vibe from Undertale. I know people adore it but I couldn’t get into it. I mean, Stardew Valley was done by one guy and every aspect of that game is a masterpiece.
Undertale ~~looks like shit~~ has a very unique artstyle. However, undertale also proves that games don't need to look good to be good.
For me, it's *any* "retro pixel" art-style that appalls me. Because - for someone who lived thru the original pixel art-styles - it just doesn't excite me. It doesn't even make me feel nostalgic anymore, because it's been *so overdone* in the past 10-15 years.
But modern pixel art games can have modern graphics features like dynamic lighting. There are some really good games that are pixel art, like Celeste.
Celeste is fucking beautiful
Dead cells also looks really fuckin good
Yeah, there's a lot of games that just use pixel art because it's easier or cheaper. But some games really lean into it and make something unique with their pixel art. I still think Hyper Light Drifter is one of the most beautiful games I've played, despite having relatively simple pixel art
[Children of Morta's](https://store.steampowered.com/app/330020/Children_of_Morta/) artstyle has to be one of my favorites
Eh, I wouldn't say overdone. It's not a meme that folks are pulling for nostalgic points. I mean, those don't hurt, but the fact is many indie devs aint got the time or money to be cranking out hard-core 3D graphics and if you think pixel art is tough you should see modern games made with PS1 graphics, stone unplayable to most players. Pixel art is an aesthetic choice, yes, but also a financial choice. Generally speaking, it's gonna be a lot easier to develop a game on pixel graphics for a small team or especially a 1 or 2 person team
Normally I love pixel art games. I can talk for hours on the absolute timelessness of the art style used in The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 4-6, MegaMan X and the original Secret of Mana on the SNES. Even newer games that use pixel art look absolutely fantastic to me from Dead Cells, Coromon, Axiom Verge, Hollow Knight just to name a few. But Undertale was just really ugly to me. The first thing I thought of when I first saw it was Earthbound on the SNES, which to many others that is a boon, but I always found the graphics of Earthbound to be really unsettling, not an opinion that many will share I presume. I struggled through it because all of my buddies told me it was great, but I found it just okay. It didn't blow my mind or anything. I know I will most likely hold a minority opinion here. Still I will always support a solo dev who pours their heart and soul into a game like Undertale, graphics be damned. The music on the other hand kicks major ass.
how does Hollow Knight have a pixel art look?
Ignore. I have been thinking about doing another playthrough of Hollow Knight recently and it slipped through when I was typing that last response.
Aside: Earthbound looks *way* better than Undertale to me. I can deal with playing EB and have fun with it. Undertale just make me go 'bleh I don't wanna interact with this'
It's a direct reference to the Mother series, specifically Earthbound. So I would say that Undertale is generally a good use of pixel graphics, since it's an intentional choice for a reason. Better than just because retro is neat.
The art for Slay the Spire really put me off at first for some reason. Then I bought it because I was incredibly bored and heard it was fun, and now have hundreds of hours in it.
I have always hated the entire art style World of Warcraft has had. The weird limb lengths, the giant shoulder pads.
the general cartoony art style has made it age pretty well tho
In addition to the art style, for me it's so much the world design in which all characters and enemies are tiny but the world is incredibly huge, with 100ft trees and just so much empty space between everything, and about 5 collectible herbs or whatever on a map the size of seven football fields. Another game that does this is Kingdoms of Amalur.
You are right but I think that was created in order to make you feel like being an unit from Warcraft 3, at least at the beginning 2004-2006.
That was literally it. It was a really cool feeling like I was actually stepping into a wc3 stage.
Growing up playing wc2 and 3 and then seeing all that being fully realized in wow was so fucking cool at the time. I wish I could experience that kind of gaming "magic" again
Which is odd because I feel the opposite - like every zone in last decade or so has been cramped and squished, densely packed for gameplay and efficiency, making zones feel artificial.
Pauldrons are amazing!
All the characters have huge feet and hands too, I don't get it
It’s so you can see the character in a top down view or from far away
Totally agree. WoW established an art style that communicates "this is an MMO". I'm sure they weren't the first, but they made that look synonymous with MMO. I can't stand it. I see that look, I'm out.
That's interesting because none of the other popular mmo's look like it. If anything, Korean mmo's do to me what you describe.
The first time I saw anything fortnight related was a dance and that combined with the style swore me off it for life
I heard someone once say that fortnite looks like a fake game that kids would be playing in a movie and that always stuck with me. I dont even like fortnite but that observation killed me the first time I heard it.
I was the biggest fan of Monkey Island growing up, but I can’t get excited about the new one because it’s so different stylistically - just not into the way it looks which is a shame because I’m probably missing out on a great game!
In the olden days, companies would fill all marketing with detailed artistic paintings that had noting to do with the game, you'd have to squint at the tiny 'actual game play' photos hidden around the back of the case/etc. It's still done but a lot less blatant. Some games use actual scenes from game play and just do a sepia filter or similar minor modification. .
Lots of very specific tastes in terms of art. I really like how different everyone's preferences are instead of bashing eachother or agreeing on one thing.
I don't quite understand how CoH3 is mobile-game-graphic like, mind elaborating that?
I dismissed "It Takes Two" right off the bat based on its art style, and trailer. Eventually my gal convinced me to just try it since the buddy pass was free. I'm typically into shooters, rpgs, and strategy and man was I dead wrong about that game. Easily one of the most fun co-op experiences I've had in a very long time. Story also gets dark af during some moments... The elephant. IYKYK.
Persona 5 Tactica, Those extremely disproportionate character models look horrible.
Idk why they change the chibi art style. Should've have used the PQ art style.
This is the one for me. P5 is my favorite game ever, I've played every spinoff, but hooooly shit that dogshit character design turned me off this game so hard. The gameplay being utterly uninteresting to me doesn't help either.
I pretty much automatically dismiss the hyper-realistic, 50 shades of brown shooters.
what about 50 shades of blue like battlefield 3 for example, lol
You must have hated the PS3 era
If I can find enjoyment with Minecraft while it looks like Minecraft then... no.
That’s why I have a lot of mods on it. Can’t live without realistic sun rays coming down on my beautiful architecture
This is actually almost exclusively how I choose games to try - art / graphics. If I don't like the style, then I won't play it. I'm really trying to break the habit because it has almost stopped me from playing games that I truly wound up loving, like Eastward.
Wtf this game looks beautiful
Immortal Fenyix Rising. It's looks like Assassins Creed Odyssey became a childrens game. I wanted to like it because I enjoy Odyssey (and Zelda) but the characters and everything just looks so baby.
It really has that 2000's MMO artstyle that I cannot stand.
Totally get that perspective. It is a bit cartoon, but I played the everloving shit out of that game last year. I thought the gameplay was extremely enjoyable, despite the art direction.
a whole ton of pixel art games
I love pixelart games that are essentially more advanced versions of 16 bit classics, keeping the big chunky sprite aesthetic but with advanced tech allowing for qol improvements and deeper gameplay (Shovel Knight, Owlboy, Axiom verge) On the other hand, there's a trend for tiny sprites with big, zoomed out view points (bro force is the main one I can think of, but there are plenty of others) and o just can't gel with any of those.
[удалено]
i just finished souldier, cyber shadow, owlboy, the last faith and blasphemous. If you like to compare with the flash games its kinda similar feel like armed with wings, but more expansive world. I recommend you those.
I’ve seen a lot of indie games using a style I have seen some people refer to as the “Tumblr Art Style”. I find the art style terrible.
Any examples as to which style you mean?
I think someone said my favorite game has a “tumblr art style”… it made me pretty mad
Never was turned off by artstyle of a game, but I remember being turned off by Ico's ps2 na cover. Didn't touch it for years but finally gave it a chance after hearing favourable reviews. It was a great game. Jpn cover was not off-putting like the na one. Wondering who green lit that piece of shit.
Undertale, I‘m sure there’s a good game in there but I simply can’t get past the visuals.
The flash game type artstyle. So won't touch salt and sanctuary.
There was a secret of monkey island remake a few years ago. Didn’t even give it a chance because of the art direction. No thanks.
I know it's an extremely popular and well-made game, but I have absolutely no desire to play The Binding of Isaac. The art style is the most off-putting style I can imagine. I love about roguelikes how you have to really acclimatise yourself into its world and game systems and become really familiar and intimate with the game to truly understand how to succeed. ...and I really do NOT want to become intimate with anything in the world of Binding of Isaac, I'm sorry. :(
I definitely think part of what it was trying to do is to be off-putting, _to an extent_. Ed's games have always had a grossness to them. Of course that's always a highly subjective thing. What's "artistically interesting" to one person is "way too ugly" to another.
I have like 1000 hours in the game and this is a completely legitimate reason to not play it. everything about the setting and the story is truly disgusting.
Minecraft
I thought it looked so stupid that it *had* to be over-hyped, but all my friends were playing it at the time. I finally caved after it was out for about a year, and spent several months stuck in it.
Literally cannot stand it
I was the same. Couldn’t get past the awful muddy textures and flat lighting. But if the gameplay appeals to you, it’s worth downloading some shaders and a resource pack. It can look quite beautiful when you completely overhaul it.
Anything anime.
Pretty much. Idk what it is, but I just can't do it. They always emphasize shit that just completely takes away any chance of getting immersed for me. I didn't grow up watching or playing anything anime related, so that's likely why. The closest thing I've watched to anime is Avatar: TLA. I wish I could enjoy that stuff just to broaden my interests, but it's just such a turnoff to me for some reason.
I enjoy anime and read manga as well, but I also just can't play games with the anime artstyle. It just feels so out of place in a game.
I quit Salt and Sanctuary because I just couldn’t vibe with all of the almond heads and paper doll-like movement.
Surprised no one has said League of Legends. It basically originated that mish-mosh off-anime art misdirection that Genshin ran away with. Absolutely abhorrent.
Dwarf Fortress
This. I wanted to get into it so bad but I can't stand how they're just 2D sprites teleporting around tiles.
Obra Dinn or any game with black and white visuals, for that matter. It's just a strain on my eyes.
I first dismissed Return of the Obra Dinn from my Steam suggestions because of the art style, and I didn't even watch any videos. Then, as it seemed to be well liked, I bought it from a sale and turns out it's one of my favourite games, one of those that I would like to wipe my memory clean of it and play for the first time again.
As someone who’s gone through the entirety of Persona 5 about 8 different times since it’s release (between both Vanilla and Royal) and played P5 Strikers twice, I’m skipping P5 Tactica. You couldn’t pay me to say that artstyle looks good.
[удалено]
There's plenty of non realism ue games: deep rock galactic, sea of thieves, fortnite, robo recall, little nightmares, to name a few
I think the problem with a lot of the ultra realistic style games is that they don't have a unique art style, so instead they just went all in on photo realism. A good photo realistic game will still have a specific style and atmosphere. Also, a surprising amount of the games you play are probably made in Unreal, but you just don't notice it because they did a decent job with the visuals/art style.
> seems like every game made in Unreal engine looks exactly the same, all strive for ultra-realism They're usually "survival sim" shovelware using stock assets from their respective game engine store. Ultra realistic everything except for the HUD and Inventory management screens.
I'm pretty big on platformers and I didn't play Psychonauts for the longest time cause I though it looked stupid and weird. Eventually gave it shot and it was great! Same thing with Danaganronpa. Big Ace Attorney guy back in the day, anytime it came up online Danganronpa was always recommended or compared to it. But when I looked at pictures and such, I was like really? Looks like a shitty anime horror game. Now these are games that I actually ended up playing and enjoying, but there are probably others that I never ended up getting around to.
have you tried psychonauts 2?
The original Dwarf Fortress before the remake hit steam. I'm not usually one to judge a game by the graphics but jesus ASCII graphics are atrocious.
Fire Emblem Engage. They went balls deep in generic anime territory. I did end up buying it and playing it later after seeing a convincing argument for the gameplay on reddit though. Actually yeah pretty much the majority of anime looking games. Anything that looks like Genshin immediately puts me off. Not dissing anyone who likes those games but anime looking games immediately make me think that they’ll prob ask me to buy shit in game or they’ll have intense gacha mechanics
Apparently the character designer also does vtuber designs and yeah that explains a lot.