• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Thread of WTF Did they do to the character design??

Soul Beat

Member
cc7ab7fe9355b60546a154c0075a4271.jpg
I lol'd. But why does it hurt so much?
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
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:

rpElv.jpg





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.

Yeah this is basically what I was gonna say, though I generally don't like how a lot of "generic" anime has gone recently - with the whole emphasis on glamorizing prepubescent girls. The Fire Emblem screenshot is a perfect example.

But I think Castlevania Judgement, like a lot of this thread really, was just the result of hiring a different character designer, in this case Takeshi Obata who's most famous for creating Death Note. There are specific designers who I think are still amazing these days: Inoue, Samura, Miura, Yoshida, etc. They just do relatively little content compared to the general whole of the medium.


I thought that was bad, but then I saw this:

zkABL.jpg


Flemeth's transformation from homely old hag to BDSM-grandma was also interesting:

6q2Ng.jpg
>
UUTZx.jpg

Really, the whole arts style shift from Dragon Age Origins to DA2 was just a disappointment. Yes Origins looked really generic, but DA2 looks really bland and tacky.
 

G-Fex

Member
There's the thing about ruining the iconic look of the characters.

Maybe that's why I don't like new Lara. Did she look trampy before? Probably, but it's what they know her by. Now they try to make her "Gritty reboot" with bloodied face, modernized and all that.

Meh whatever.
 

Uchip

Banned
There's the thing about ruining the iconic look of the characters.

Maybe that's why I don't like new Lara. Did she look trampy before? Probably, but it's what they know her by. Now they try to make her "Gritty reboot" with bloodied face, modernized and all that.

Meh whatever.

That was kind of my original point
If someone showed me new lara, I would probably never guess it was her.
 

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
There's the thing about ruining the iconic look of the characters.

Maybe that's why I don't like new Lara. Did she look trampy before? Probably, but it's what they know her by. Now they try to make her "Gritty reboot" with bloodied face, modernized and all that.

Meh whatever.

But the gritty reboot version of Yugi in 5D's was easily the best version.
 
To answer the topic question, character design was corporatized.

Marketing departments began having the dominant influence on character designs that were consistent with attracting the demographics they were targeting, rather than letting an artist design something that was unique or at the cutting edge of video game art and style.
 

XOMTOR

Member
If someone showed me new lara, I would probably never guess it was her.

True, without being told that was Lara I'd probably not guess it was her either. Anyway, that's just her CG render; her in-game model doesn't look like that. Actually come to think of it, most of the past renders of her don't resemble her in-game character.
 

Wii Tank

Member
I didn't really like any of the character redesigns in Nuts and Bolts with the exception of Banjo. Kazooie looks like a joke, and her role in Nuts and Bolts reflects that.

Gruntilda really stands out for me. How could she go from this:
350434-gr2_super.jpg


and this:
114360-213266-GruntyCauldronKeeppng-620x.jpg


To this:
bnb_cast_2.jpg


Ugh
 
I was waiting for someone to mention Shion from Xenosaga. That Ep. 3 outfit was fucking atrocious. Even though she's terrible she at least looked like a badass in Ep. 2.

At least try to find good examples. This is all very small and it's not a huge downgrade (a very minor one, actually).

Speak for yourself, that Rena is terrible. Original Rena is the best.

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.

Spiky haired Sparkster = best Sparkster.
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
Capcom can go suck a dick for that middle aged Mega Man abomination.
 

vg260

Member
The fat SFxT MegaMan looks nothing like the bad box art Megaman. That's my problem with it.

This is more accurate:
megaman_97658_embed.jpg


How'd they get to this?
thumb-20120126-34379_0006.png
 

CorvoSol

Member
guys
i really wanna talk about bowser's lack of a nose

Dude. He fell in a sun and didn't lose anything. Then he fell in lava and lost EVERYTHING. Clearly Bowser's flesh is constantly falling off after a certain period of time. This picture is the beginning of the molting, with his nose having already fallen from his face.

Bowser also used to not have hair.
 

IrishNinja

Member
^true, but he had hair in the manual/art of some of the NES games, no? i just figured they didnt bother with the pixels.
i guess his nose could've gone first when mario threw him into bombs a lot in 64, but it's still weird.
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
Oh, that Mega Man is supposed to be based on the original's box art? That makes it mildly less REALLY FUCKING OFFENSIVE.
 
The fat SFxT MegaMan looks nothing like the bad box art Megaman. That's my problem with it.

This is more accurate:
megaman_97658_embed.jpg


How'd they get to this?
thumb-20120126-34379_0006.png
I agree. It's like they loosely built him on something that only a handful of SFxT players will recognize, so what was the point? I'm a huge "fan" of the Megaman box art and even I didn't recognize it was supposed to be OG US box art Megaman at first. I thought it was E-Honda in a Megaman helmet.
 
Top Bottom