Not Spaceghost
Spaceghost
So I was looking through some old WoW screenshots I had when I noticed something kinda weird that I realized extended beyond just WoW. Western swords like the bastard sword, claymore, long sword, messer and even rapier all appear in video games in their basic forms at the start of the game but eventually spiral into out of control color carnivals by the end. The same however cannot really be said for eastern weapon designs, specifically katanas.
Let's use WoW through the end of TBC as an example.
You have your basic bastard sword at the starting levels:
Mean while with WoW katana's all practically look like this
Though you could make the argument that the dragonscale encursted longblade is a katana inspired model which would make it he most elaborate katana design in the game as far as I know (even to date not just in the example time frame).
Skyrim has rather ornate and elaborate weapon designs for the high end one handed and two handed swords, but the highest quality katana's in that game all look like very basic katana's with either a red tint, black tint or gold tint to them.
Anyways this isn't really a problem specific to western designed games, Ninja Gaiden Sigma for example has the traditional dragon sword katana that ryu uses and when fully upgraded to the true dragon sword all it gets is a glowing gem at the hilt and an aura on the sword, meanwhile the dabilahro a massive two handed sword starts off as a basic looking buster sword type thing but at its max level basically looks like something devil farted out.
Devil May Cry also does this, with force edge being a basic looking two handed sword that has the final form of sparda, a hellish looking transforming blade and rebellion being this ornate looking skeletal themed sword meanwhile Yamato is just a basic katana with a distinct yellow strip on the sheath.
I would wager that the basic design of the katana is still considered to be exotic enough to warrant looking plain while still conveying a sense of rarity and strength I take it? While the traditional design of western swords in the realm of video games are often understood as being "basic" or "starter equipment".
Naturally there are games that circumvent this like dark souls but outside of a few weapons (namely the MLGS) dark souls doesn't really have too many weapons that are ridiculous looking anyways however the few that exist all seem to be based on a western design, even the quelaag fury sword acts like a falchion.
Really when I think of "ridiclous katana's" only three weapons come to mind, Sephiroths goddamn washing pole of a sword and Jetstream Sam's high frequency murasama, and the super silly quad beam katana from no more heroes.
So if you guys have some weird ass designs I've missed or flat out think that my observation is wrong and I should feel bad please share!
Let's use WoW through the end of TBC as an example.
You have your basic bastard sword at the starting levels:
By end game you've got something like this:
Mean while with WoW katana's all practically look like this
The most elaborate they get is the felsteel longblade
Though you could make the argument that the dragonscale encursted longblade is a katana inspired model which would make it he most elaborate katana design in the game as far as I know (even to date not just in the example time frame).
Skyrim has rather ornate and elaborate weapon designs for the high end one handed and two handed swords, but the highest quality katana's in that game all look like very basic katana's with either a red tint, black tint or gold tint to them.
Anyways this isn't really a problem specific to western designed games, Ninja Gaiden Sigma for example has the traditional dragon sword katana that ryu uses and when fully upgraded to the true dragon sword all it gets is a glowing gem at the hilt and an aura on the sword, meanwhile the dabilahro a massive two handed sword starts off as a basic looking buster sword type thing but at its max level basically looks like something devil farted out.
Devil May Cry also does this, with force edge being a basic looking two handed sword that has the final form of sparda, a hellish looking transforming blade and rebellion being this ornate looking skeletal themed sword meanwhile Yamato is just a basic katana with a distinct yellow strip on the sheath.
I would wager that the basic design of the katana is still considered to be exotic enough to warrant looking plain while still conveying a sense of rarity and strength I take it? While the traditional design of western swords in the realm of video games are often understood as being "basic" or "starter equipment".
Naturally there are games that circumvent this like dark souls but outside of a few weapons (namely the MLGS) dark souls doesn't really have too many weapons that are ridiculous looking anyways however the few that exist all seem to be based on a western design, even the quelaag fury sword acts like a falchion.
Really when I think of "ridiclous katana's" only three weapons come to mind, Sephiroths goddamn washing pole of a sword and Jetstream Sam's high frequency murasama, and the super silly quad beam katana from no more heroes.
So if you guys have some weird ass designs I've missed or flat out think that my observation is wrong and I should feel bad please share!
