The Art Style and Graphics Discussion

[Tyaren]

Lol, UpsideDownGrunt, you're being quite unreasonable. Hayate and Ein do look exactly alike and Chapstick brought proof, still you insist they look different, even that Ein looks way better and Hayate is fugly. XD

By the way, when you dream about your "slight man crush" in lonely nights, what is he wearing? I recall you hating all his slutty costumes equally. >.>

 

[Jadeinchains]

Oh guys, Nina Williams was just announced for T7, and her main outfit appears to be a somewhat torn wedding dress with a hidden holster, and a veil on her hair....and her ponytail is curled and she wears earrings. Whenever Yellowmotion makes a comparison chart about her, I'll post it to see what everyone thinks about her new graphical update.

EDIT: This isn't an in game image, but here's how it looks:
View attachment 18104
If you guys want to see the whole ensemble in action, the video should be in the recent media section, Project Bokuho posted it minutes ago.

Thank god they've finally announced her. I've been waiting since they first revealed the game. Graphics aside I feel like they've really improved on how she looks, no more does she look manly. Now the wedding dress is another thing because I guess it will be a plot point but who knows. And yeah its cool they changed up her ponytail and didn't just leave it as it has always been.

 

[UpSideDownGRUNT]

Lol, UpsideDownGrunt, you're being quite unreasonable. Hayate and Ein do look exactly alike and Chapstick brought proof, still you insist they look different, even that Ein looks way better and Hayate is fugly. XD

By the way, when you dream about your "slight man crush" in lonely nights, what is he wearing? I recall you hating all his slutty costumes equally. >.>

I don't "dream" of Ein on lonely nights lol I just find him mildly attractive with his smirk and everything... that doesn't automatically mean I love every slutty trash costume Hitomi makes him wear.
Also, Hayate has the charm of a wet blanket even Alpha-152 has more charm than him.

Anyway...
remember old trailers of this game when it had motion blur and the stages actually looked good?

Even Last Round on PS4 pales in comparison to this trailer/Alpha Demo LOL

 

[Tyaren]

Anyway...
remember old trailers of this game when it had motion blur and the stages actually looked good?

Even Last Round on PS4 pales in comparison to this trailer/Alpha Demo LOL

It's the great contrast of light and shadow. If you want to make a game look good/realistic, set the contrast very high. That's what they now did with Tekken 7 Fated Retribution. That needs a lot of console power though and so we mostly get flat lighting in games.

Just Imagine how good the first DOA6 trailer will look like...before it is downgraded in the end.
But honestly, I can't wait to see DOA6 and Soul Calibur 6 on the PS4. That's what I dream of in my lonely nights...

 

[UpSideDownGRUNT]

Hopefully Team Ninja ditches dark and gritty for DOA6, 5 is very styalised sure, but it looks so unfitting of the game's post vanilla direction.

I'd like to see deep orange sunset stages and wet, dense light scarce forests and stuff.

 

[KasumiLover]

They need to go back to colorful and lively stages, but make them NOT random and turn it up a notch for next Gen.

 

[Chapstick]

I don't "dream" of Ein on lonely nights lol I just find him mildly attractive with his smirk and everything... that doesn't automatically mean I love every slutty trash costume Hitomi makes him wear.
Also, Hayate has the charm of a wet blanket even Alpha-152 has more charm than him.

I was thinking that could also be why you find them to look different, they do carry themselves differently with Ein being 100x more likable. I really don't like Hayate's character at all tbh and I think that's part of why I find Ein the more attractive one too.

 

[Jadeinchains]

Another game I got when I got final fantasy 13 was Theatrhythm Curtain Call since I'm trying to get into final fantasy more in preparation for Final Fantasy 15. And even though I haven't started it yet ( to busy playing 13 ) its artstyle really makes up were graphics can't.

I love how all the characters have this little chibi look to them. It definitely makes them look cute even the monsters.

 

[Chapstick]

Another game I got when I got final fantasy 13 was Theatrhythm Curtain Call since I'm trying to get into final fantasy more in preparation for Final Fantasy 15. And even though I haven't started it yet ( to busy playing 13 ) its artstyle really makes up were graphics can't.

I love how all the characters have this little chibi look to them. It definitely makes them look cute even the monsters.

I made a post with screenshots of this game earlier in this thread. I love the game to pieces but a big part of what makes it so enjoyable is playing familiar songs with familiar settings, monsters, and characters. How many FF's have you played? The more you've played the better the game is imo

 

[Jadeinchains]

I made a post with screenshots of this game earlier in this thread. I love the game to pieces but a big part of what makes it so enjoyable is playing familiar songs with familiar settings, monsters, and characters. How many FF's have you played? The more you've played the better the game is imo

Ive honestly hardly played any. But I've listened to the music for years because one of my friends is obsessed with the games and plays the music all the time. I've played quite a bit into FFX and FFXII but thats about all. FFXIII will be the first game I complete though. Despite not playing the games much my self I do know them quite well from watching said friend play though them. I'm sure there's things though in the game that you found nostalgic that will just fly over my head though lol.

I'm actually surprised I haven't gotten into them since there a classic franchise and I've been into videogames my whole life. I think it was also just so intimidating how coplex they seemed and when ever i played them i'd die. Also I somehow avoided tomb raider until I played the two reboot games last year so it isn't the only franchise I'm late to the party with.

 

[Tyaren]

These are indeed cute! :3

Reminds me of World of Final Fantasy that will be coming out for the PS4 sometime this year:

Sometimes the graphic style does switch to a little (but just a little) more realistic proportions similar to Kingdom Hearts:

When they revealed the game a few months ago I wasn't really impressed by it (in part also beacause of the overly simple and cute art style), but this trailer at the last Tokyo Game Show did really spark my interest:

So, how do you like Final Fantasy XIII so far? I was underwhelmed by it (although it looked of course gorgeous) but I still kinda liked it and I even finished it. I started XIII-2 but after about 5 hours I gave up. Horrible game and even much much much worse than everything XIII was. D: Lightning Returns I didn't even touch, except the demo, which I hated. It didn't even look graphically or artistically good anymore, so there was literally no reason for me to touch it. A certain someone might want to strangle me now. XD

 

[Jadeinchains]

That game does look insanely cute. Maybe I'll get it when it comes out. It looks like you rediscover all the old final fantasy worlds. Also in terms of 13 I just got to a frozen lake and they've just introduced a paradigm system which I have to be honest is what I was worried about. I hope it isn't to complex and confusing. I like the game so far it hasn't fully opened up all options yet but the world seems interesting and non of the characters are annoying me yet so everythings fine right now.

 

[Chapstick]

That game does look insanely cute. Maybe I'll get it when it comes out. It looks like you rediscover all the old final fantasy worlds. Also in terms of 13 I just got to a frozen lake and they've just introduced a paradigm system which I have to be honest is what I was worried about. I hope it isn't to complex and confusing. I like the game so far it hasn't fully opened up all options yet but the world seems interesting and non of the characters are annoying me yet so everythings fine right now.

Paradigms just change what abilities you and your team members use. Like if a boss is about to unleash a huge attack a sentinel sentinel sentinel endure (or whatever the ability's called I forget) paradigm is what you want or if you miss your chance doing that and get near death you can switch to a medic medic medic and shoot your HP back up quick. If you want to chain up an enemy's stagger quick as hell a ravager ravager ravager team is great into a commando commando ravager paradigm (depending on your team, Snow you definitely want as commando when an enemy is staggered) Unfortunately it's not til a while in every character can use every "class." Saboteurs are my favorite, incapacitating enemies with status effects and watching them die slowly from poison

 

[Jadeinchains]

Well I'm happy to say I completely understand paradigms now. Good thing I enjoy grinding because I'm sure that will be a big thing later on. I'm in some big scrapheap but I've decided to stop playing for today because I want to start theatrhythm now. Thanks Tyaren and ChapStick for not just helping me understand the mechanics but also for making me decide to start playing the series. I'm about 6 hours into 13 and I'm guessing it will be like 60 hours long or something.

PS: Sorry Tyaren that not a lot of this was on topic.

 

[Tyaren]

You are forgiven. I'm glad this thread has become livlier. Not just me talking to myself anymore. XD

A new trailer of King of Fighters XIV was released as some of you probably already know:

So, what do you guys think?

Let me say something in defense of it:
Calling the character models PS2 quality (said in a lot of forums all over the internet) was nonsense from the start. The character models are actually very well modelled (better than Tekken 7's for example) and their texturing is also perfectly fine. (Though the skin looks a little waxy.)
The real problem is the incoherent art style and the mostly no more than mediocre character design. They won't be able to completely fix this in the future unless they would start again from the very beginning, since a specified art style as well as character design are the basis all the visuals are build upon.

I do like Benimaru's new costume though. Looks very different but somehow cool! Also Yay! for K!

 

[Jadeinchains]

10/10 for the blue whale in the background!

Its strange how every fighting game this generation has kind of a crappy art style or just graphics in general. The worst offender being Tekken 7 before its extreme makeover. It does look pretty nice now but definitely not breath taking visuals only possible on next gen. Maybe they should have just left them as sprites.

Soul Calibur 6 really does need to be revealed and show everyone how its done.

 

[coopermon]

People moan about doa5's graphics but I don't think any of the up and coming fighters look anywhere near as good.
I haven't liked where Streetfighter has gone graphically since alpha3. 5 looks like plasticine and why has ryu got that ridiculous hair cut?
He looks like a gone off pineapple:

This please:

KOF 14 doesn't look great which I can forgive. It has a large roster and I don't think SNK have as much 3D experience has capcom, namco and tecmo. Hopefully they will tweak it some more.
Tekken looks OK but not great, I don't think much of Nina's hair but her dress flows quite nicely.

 

[Tyaren]

People moan about doa5's graphics but I don't think any of the up and coming fighters look anywhere near as good.

Well, that's debatable... :/ Last Round on PS4/Xbone sure can look nicely polished in parts and some of the character models (the girls mostly) still look pretty good...but the stages, the in general really awful textures and the undynamic, baked in lighting...? The real current generation fighters are far ahead in all these regards. Even if you don't personally dig the art style. People often seem to mix up graphics (the technical aspects) with art style. That was exactly the point I tried to make regarding KOFXIV. It's not so much the technical part that makes the game look bad but the mediocre uninspired art.

 

[Jadeinchains]

Maybe for KOFXIV if they would just show some interesting character designs that go with this new art style it will look good. From what they've shown so far its just always these same two men in that pretty dull stage. I instantly thought it looked better when they were in the aquarium stage. who knows though maybe the game will look okay at launch. I doubt it though considering its problem is more art than graphics.

And when it comes to doa5 its let down by the texture work on just about everything excluding the default outfits. There work on dissidia is looking beautiful right now though.

so I just hope DOA6 will have great texture work, loose hair that isn't terrible and male characters who aren't treated like they aren't even wanted anymore.

 

[Chapstick]

And when it comes to doa5 its let down by the texture work on just about everything excluding the default outfits.

Take a look at Christie's C1