[henhowc]

I literally LOLed just now. Is he still the same whiny piece of shit he was as a kid? Bomberman wins hands down though.

Uh wut? This is SNOW. Not Hope. And do you guys really think Snow's original design is that much better? Chocobo hair > Beanie head IMO.

[Thores]

I literally LOLed just now. Is he still the same whiny piece of shit he was as a kid?

I think you're talking about Hope and not Snow.

Hope's new design isn't amazing but is less offensive:

[PixyJunket]

Modern anime character designs are terrifyingly bad, a lot of these examples are simply that.

The original Rondo of Blood Maria vs. Judgement Maria is probably the best example of this in the thread.

Was there a specific moment it all went wrong?

[Boogiepop]

The Judgment designs are funny because it seemed to me like the Death Note guy just couldn't manage to draw them as anything other than Death Note characters... which is odd in retrospect considering I don't find this issue with Bakuman.

[PixyJunket]

The Judgment designs are funny because it seemed to me like the Death Note guy just couldn't manage to draw them as anything other than Death Note characters... which is odd in retrospect considering I don't find this issue with Bakuman.

What I found odd (with his Judgement designs) is that the Death Note cast are mostly simple designs (shinigami excepted, I suppose).

[gunbo13]

Modern anime character designs are terrifyingly bad, a lot of these examples are simply that. Was there a specific moment it all went wrong?

The Japanese media industry is tied as one. Anime style game designs went along with anime/manga. It is what sells over there. And games that are not expected to sell in the west well mentioned in this thread, except for niche audience, will cater towards the modern style.

However, for better or worse, you will continue to see a shift towards western favorable character designs.

EDIT:
The moment would be the shift in anime character designs in the last decade.

[LiK]

HAHAHAHA, the images and your comments are cracking me up. love you guys.

[djplaeskool]

Damnit.
I just imagine Alistair yelling "FELLAAAAA!"

[henhowc]

I think you're talking about Hope and not Snow. Hope's new design isn't amazing but is less offensive:

Serah's new outfit was the most "offensive" to me. "Where did these clothes come from?" Indeed.

[Razgriz-Specter]

Am I the only one that thought this was the best Dante design


Really thought the cowboyish design fit Dante well.

[Dark Octave]

Uh wut? This is SNOW. Not Hope. And do you guys really think Snow's original design is that much better? Chocobo hair > Beanie head IMO.

I think you're talking about Hope and not Snow. Hope's new design isn't amazing but is less offensive:

lol My bad, I got them mixed up. Chocobo hair I guess isn't as bad as having a chocobo IN your hair. Speaking of, is the only black man in the world even in XIII-2? If so, what does he look like now?

The older Hope still looks like a little prick, but yeah, not as crazy as Snow. Put the bennie back on, dude.

[udivision]

Mario Strikers, don't know if want...

Considering that's where I got my Avatar from, I must disagree.

[Zeitgeister]

Captain Jacob Keyes, Halo:CE (2001) Captain Jacob Keyes, Halo:CEA (2011) Made even worse by the fact that, like in Reach, he's inexplicably wearing a dress uniform.

Oh my, wtf happened to his faaaaaaaace...

Also: this thread was indeed for Metroid Prime Samus. Followed by Other M of course.

Then again:





And not just the character design. The very embodyment of "WTF where they thinking?".
At least his cameo appearance wasn't entirely bad:



And then there is the modus picture, of course.

[Ahasverus]

DMC1 and DMC2 Dante is the best Dante. The "he's "one of those" pretty boy white hair dark hero guys with a smirk and big sword" point is kinda lost when you don't say what other characters were like him BEFORE he existed.

Alucard.

DMC stole too much from CV for my tastes.

[Brera]

to

[henhowc]

lol My bad, I got them mixed up. Chocobo hair I guess isn't as bad as having a chocobo IN your hair. Speaking of, is the only black man in the world even in XIII-2? If so, what does he look like now?

Sahz is supposed to be in some upcoming DLC. I'm sure he'll probably look the same, afro and all. At least it was a chocobo and not a pick in his hair right? Or maybe he'll have corn rows. LOL

to

I don't consider the butchered American box art of the NES era...character design changes.

[Ahasverus]

Simon Belmont


Simon Kojima


It's not that its a bad design, but that's NO Simon at all, hell even Gabriel Belmont is more of a redesigned Simon.

[bon]

Samus looked weird without her helmet in Prime. Luckily they fixed her in later games.

[Foffy]

It's not that its a bad design, but that's NO Simon at all, hell even Gabriel Belmont is more of a redesigned Simon.

Lords of Shadow was supposed to star Simon Belmont, so that's why it looks so similar. Instead of a 3D remake of Simon's story, they went with a reboot.

[Primeval]

Surprised not to see Chun-LI mentioned, the changed in the legs killed for me.

[Slamtastic]

to

Don't worry!

They've seen the error of their ways!

[Gez]

Heres a screenie i took of Ezio without his cowl.



He looks fine without it, but looks retarted with it on. Desmond just looks bad.

[Ushojax]

Samus looked weird without her helmet in Prime. Luckily they fixed her in later games.

Samus looked perfect in Prime IMO. Later titles went to the more awkward, cartoonish face that we've seen in every game post-Zero Mission, probably because Sakamoto couldn't jerk off to the face Retro came up with.

[alf717]

Heres a screenie i took of Ezio without his cowl. He looks fine without it, but looks retarted with it on. Desmond just looks bad.

I agree. Seeing all the characters with their new looks was just awful. Ezio without the hood looks great and with the hood on he just looks strange. Desmond just looks like he is fat. At first I thought they did it to go along with the jokes from AC:B about how he was getting fat.

[StickSoldier]

Sahz is supposed to be in some upcoming DLC. I'm sure he'll probably look the same, afro and all. At least it was a chocobo and not a pick in his hair right? Or maybe he'll have corn rows. LOL I don't consider the butchered American box art of the NES era...character design changes.

I never realized he had no iris/pupil in his right eye... Wtf?

[watership]

Modern anime character designs are terrifyingly bad, a lot of these examples are simply that. The original Rondo of Blood Maria vs. Judgement Maria is probably the best example of this in the thread. Was there a specific moment it all went wrong?

Watching anime since the 70s and hearing this same artistic complaint ever 10 years is hilarious. Every generation will hate the inevitable change to the new one. Its just taste, man.

[Hasardeur]

Nintendo!!

[nckillthegrimace]

Heres a screenie i took of Ezio without his cowl. He looks fine without it, but looks retarted with it on. Desmond just looks bad.

With the hood on Ezio looks like Uncle Phil.

[DarkKyo]

NINTENDO!!

I actually like most of the re-designs in Twilight Princess. They are all updated to be a bit darker/realistic. I think this was a nice touch for what is probably the darkest Zelda. For example....

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

[spirity]

Damnit. I just imagine Alistair yelling "FELLAAAAA!"

Press A for Celtic Cross

[SonicMegaDrive]

This is a great redesign.

It's like, anti-Sonic or something.

[SonicMegaDrive]

The art is kinda wonky, but the one thing I am glad of is that they got rid of that lame spikey hair he had from the second game.

[SHAZOOM]

Mario Strikers, don't know if want...

I honestly think this is the best versions of Mario and gang out on the market.

[Zekes!]

This is a great redesign. It's like, anti-Sonic or something.

Makes actually interested in a Tomb Raider game for once

[kittens]

A week ago I would have said Halo 4 Master Chief, but the toy pics released last Wednesday have changed my tune. Looks fantastic now.

[FyreWulff]

You mean why is he so much like the original game? Do people really want their older generation games to look like the box art characters? Really?

Yup, Nuts and Bolts design makes more sense when you realize it's supposed to be an upressed version of their N64 models, not the promo/box art models. The idea being that the characters were actually supposed to be square-ish in their world.

[Yasae]

to

So the graphics really did get worse.

[Brera]

Ah yes, good ol' Clooneyface: Granted, that's not really fair, since even back then he could draw distinct faces, such as this: And, in my opinion, he's only improved since then. But let's not deify the man. Besides, comparing Athena's older KOF designs to a redesign that was made to match an alternate version of Athena from a completely different genre (and one that was more or less 1-to-1 to boot!) seems like a sleazy bout of omission just to say that KOF's character designs have gone to rot. Like that shitty "What I Expected/What I Got" image meme. Yeah, she looks like a vague moeblob now. That's where she started from! Hell, she was one of the anime idol vanguard, right down to putting the first image song in a videogame during gameplay. Even in her first KOF stint she was more like a magical girl than an out-and-out martial artist; didn't even get any real heft to her moves until '96. Sometimes I think games in general could have done without Psycho Soldier, but then I think about what could have taken its place... yeesh So it a broader sense it's going from this, to this: I know what you mean, though. Going from goofy idol Athena to Chubby Athena is a bit weird. I kind of wich we had gotten an optional alt version of Athena down the line, like the sprites in her Neomax: And I'm not posting because I think you're wrong or anything; you're entitled to your opinion. It's just that your post rubbed me the wrong way; I read it as something like, "man, I never played past a certain point, but based off this one image, I can tell that KOF went to shit in a big way". And if it were just like that one pic, you'd have a solid source. But the series has changed character illustrators and designers so often that I think it would be difficult to identify an iconic look for the whole series; individual games, sure, but not something that defines the whole series, or even specific arts. I mean, it's true that Eisuke Ogura's work in KOF XIII is a pretty big shift from the older stuff. But hell, even Shinkiro had a drastic shift in style from the beginning of his work in KOF to the end of it: And since KOF '96, they've had multiple artists handle different aspects of the game. Take KOF 2003 for example. Falcoon did the main promotional work, but Nona did most of the in-game portraits and artwork. And up until KOF XII, they used the same basic sprite work from '96 to XI, so they haven't even really matched the artwork for quite some time (and I'm counting '99-2000 when I say this.) So just cobbling together a few portraits and saying that they represent some golden age puts a really narrow focus on the art of the series. And this is all coming from a guy who only played KOF '98 until 2006

URGH!!!

Always hated those SNK shots of characters with strange eyes and chins. Fucking awful, why Capcom gave that guy job, I'll never know.

Worst Capcom Art ever! Capcom is Capcom, not SNK! Also, new Chris looks ace. Man up geeks!

[Brera]

I never realized he had no iris/pupil in his right eye... Wtf?

It's called character depth. Something lacking these days...

[Dark Octave]

Don't worry! They've seen the error of their ways!

Wow! Does Capcom hate Megaman fans or what?

[QisTopTier]

Wow! Does Capcom hate Megaman fans or what?

Inafune told them to use him :P

[kunonabi]

Wow! Does Capcom hate Megaman fans or what?

yep.

I like Athena's new look. The problem is it looks awful on Mai, Yuri, and King.

[XxSlasherMcGirkxX]

I would also like to point out I am not a fan of Chris Roidsfeild.

Chris win quote from Marvel 3 "With all the stuff I have to deal with on a daily basis, would you really expect me not to bulk up?"

Capcom has tried to backpedal it with it being a story explanation being that when Chris got bodied so badly by Wesker in CV that he would bulk up so he could stand a better chance at winning.

FUCK THAT SHIT! Send Roidsfeild into retcon limbo and give me Smoking I gotta shotgun Ace I'm a member of STARS Redfeild anyday.

Hell give me a Resident Evil game that doesn't have anything to do with Virus, Zombies, Umbrella ect and just let me play as STARS wreckin' shit up.

[Totobeni]

Makes actually interested in a Tomb Raider game for once

This is a great redesign. It's like, anti-Sonic or something.

The in-game/real time model of new Lara still has plasticy and very toy-ish face and a big breast.

[Miizy F Baby]

Modern anime character designs are terrifyingly bad, a lot of these examples are simply that. The original Rondo of Blood Maria vs. Judgement Maria is probably the best example of this in the thread. Was there a specific moment it all went wrong?

Eh, there's no such thing as the blanket 'Modern anime character design' and Obata, ironically enough, is one of the better artists out there, imo. His designs for Judgment were hell, but the man is definitely more than one commission. Ex:

Once again, I don't see much meaningful difference! FF8 art looks like Dissidia art. FF8 3D looks like Dissidia 3D.

I can't agree with you in saying that the 2D pieces match up, duck. Nomura was definitely going for a much different Squall the second or third time around. Still, I do agree with you in saying that my comparison was broken. The actual in-game model of Dissidia isn't all that far removed from the psx-era CG model. I guess it's not all that hard a fall.

[sTeLioSco]

Wow! Does Capcom hate Megaman fans or what?

[Zoramon089]

The in-game/real time model of new Lara still has plasticy and very toy-ish face and a big breast.

Just one? That's a strange decision

[Inversive]

I'm sure I hated every character design in Tekken 6. I didn't play 5 though so I don't if they were good/bad or not. Probably bad at a guess :P

[Andrex]

Yeah, that LKS shit is a travesty. TBH the original game looked and sounded awful :)

Umm wut

[Requeim]

I'm sure I hated every character design in Tekken 6. I didn't play 5 though so I don't if they were good/bad or not. Probably bad at a guess :P

The Tekken 5 designs (including the new ones) were all awesome.

Tekken 6 is a bit more wonky, only new character i really love is Leo. Miguel, Zafina and Alisa are kind of meh, but still acceptable imo. Bob and Lars are fucking terrible.