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[rochellepaws]

I'm not really into fighting games but I find the style very appealing, some characters like Noel have really cool designs. While a lot of fighting games would normally turn me off based on their aesthetics, particularly those with overly muscled characters.

 

[Danjin44]

Fighting games are my favorite genre and while I can enjoy a few anime series (Death Note, Dragon Ball, Gurren Lagann), I just can not get past the "typical" anime look and feel of the series, even if the gameplay is good. It's just a complete turn off.

Guilty Gear is as far as I'm able to go because I don't get too strong of a weeaboo vibe.

Is this a common feeling for those in the FGC who aren't into anime?

For fuck sake can we please stop with this shit!!? If you don't like art style that's fine but just stop with whole "weaboo" shit.

With that being said I know what you mean. I LOVE anime but I really don't like the character design for Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

I'm less in to this

And more in to this

All them are anime but Xenoblade Chronicles 2 just doesn't have that distinct style like Persona or Gravity Rush has.

 

[dadjumper]

No, I love the way it looks. It's the only reason I tried the game at all. The thing that turns me off is the mashy and over-the-top fighting. Not for me, which is a shame because I love the music and art

 

[soxinthebox]

I just found it far too complicated compared to Street Fighter IV at the time and dropped it a few weeks later. The art didn't really bother me at all.

 

[kirblar]

Blazblue is Anime Tropes: the fighting game.

 

[Hyun Sai]

Nah, that's what happened with Skullgirls though.

 

[DangerMouse]

The art style is a big reason I liked the series.

.

 

[PBalfredo]

I think I've come to terms with the fact that GG is just as much overdesigned anime shlock as BB, but I'm more incensed by BB because ArcSys took what they did with GG and just did it again

 

[Ferr986]

I still can't believe this abomination was approved.

 

[Mephala]

I always thought Blazblue was an attempt to appeal to the more general anime tastes where as Guilty Gear is more niche towards grunge and rock which made it more unique.

Here are some characters from BB that I like.

These are all pretty good to me. There are others such as Ragna, Azrael, Tsubaki which I don't really have a preference over. Then there are some I genuinely dislike... Such as this thing.

 

[StayDead]

Blazblue is beautiful. The art style draws me to the series.

 

[RoboGeorgeForeman]

Not at all. I prefer the anime aesthetic.

 

[nelo_inc]

Blazblue is beautiful. The art style draws me to the series.

Agree, i do like the overall presentation, i just never got too far into the fighting mechanics, that's the main reason why i don't play it very much.

 

[mikezilla2]

Perhaps I am lacking the proper wording but I tend to mean that high school anime vibe, I don't know how to describe it. However you would classify the look and style of BlazBlue is what completely turns me off.

highschool anime vibe yea but blaze blu to to me is nether of those things - it is its own thing ...........

So some times

 

[petran79]

It definitely turned me off from the series for the longest time, though I did end up playing CT for the first time this year.



After thinking about it... yeah there are some similarities with Last Blade. I do recall reading about the Hakumen/Last Blade connection somewhere at least.

I actually honest thought of Darkstalkers first, though (speaking only for CT's cast).

-You got a catgirl (Felicia/Taokaka), a vampire (Rachel/Demitri), a werewolf (Talbain/Valkenhayn) and a heavy/large golem who fights with lightning (Victor/Tager).

-Arakune and Carl Clover + Nirvana actually struck me as the concepts of Shadow and Marionette from Darkstalkers but turned into actual fighters. Same with Nu-13 seemingly taking Jedah's aesthetic, but removing the self mutilation and playing up the bladed wings concept by 100%

-Then there are some smaller things, like Litchi's gameplay gimmick reminding me of Donovan with his sword, or Noel with her silly, short ranged guns reminding me of Bulleta's machine gun attacks (which also have hilariously short range normally).

(I don't think Blazblue is unoriginal or derivative but I was not expecting this game to remind me so much of Darkstalkers in certain parts)

Darkstalkers too,thanks for reminding
By the time BB arrived Last Blade and Vampire Savior were my favorite games.

Carl Clover gameplay was influenced from Capcom Jojo Stands.It is Rachel floaty gameplay I found difficult to get into.

 

[RM8]

Yes. Same with GG to be honest, I actually don't see any difference in design philosophy between those two series :x

But yeah, I find them pretty unsightly and just not my thing and all.

 

[Atolm]

It's the doujin look.

I can't stand it either.

 

[mao2]

Nope, I think it's great. However, I can totally understand if someone is turned off by it. For whatever reason I really dislike Kazuma Kaneko's artworks and designs, and that's the reason why I've been ignoring the Shin Megami Tensei series.

 

[AgentLampshade]

Not for the most part. I'm turned off by the main character being named 'Ragna the Bloodedge' because holy shit what a stupid name.

 

[Zyrox]

Not at all. It's strong sense of style and unique and great looking cast of characters are what drew me to the series to begin with and now BB is my favorite Fighting game series. Just played a few matches yesterday and watched some BB @ CEOtaku.
BB has a lot of really cool characters I think like Hakumen, Susanoo, Hazama, Nine, Jubei, Azrael, Relius, Valkenhayn, Bullet, heck even Ragna is pretty alright in my book.

Sure there are some designs I don't care much for but if I dropped a FG because of a few designs like that I wouldn't play FGs at all.

 

[lupinko]

It did until I found a character that fit my play style and that was it.

 

[Via Purifico]

For fuck sake can we please stop with this shit!!? If you don't like art style that's fine but just stop with whole "weaboo" shit.

With that being said I know what you mean. I LOVE anime but I really don't like the character design for Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

Snip

All them are anime but Xenoblade Chronicles 2 just doesn't have that distinct style like Persona or Gravity Rush has.

I'm on the same boat, there are varying degrees of anime styles. I don't like the one for Xenoblade 2 at all but enjoy the other examples posted.

BB caught my attention due to the sprites and overall aesthetic. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

I was actually only ever interested because of the art style and the developer. It drew me in.

 

[PsionBolt]

I like anime, and the technical art quality (spritework, animation) in BlazBlue is great.

...And yet, it doesn't look good. The character designs range from forgettable to juvenile, and the artstyle is unappealing. "Generic" isn't the right word, I think; rather, it feels very specific -- unfortunately, the specific mind-space it places itself in is that of late night AT-X trash light novel adaptations.

That might seem weirdly particular, but to me, BlazBlue has a completely different look and completely different association than, say, Melty Blood, despite both being sprite-based anime fighters.

 

[Naked Snake]

Totally.

There's a ton of reportedly great games that I won't touch with a ten foot pole due to their art style.

Although BlazeBlue isn't too bad from what I've seen... I find something like Disgaea infinitely worse.

 

[sixteen-bit]

I thought it had a pretty cool aesthetic

 

[Narroo]

Hm, initially no, but those later character designs are pretty bad. Especially the female designs. Can you say: "Hot Pants?"

The game got pretty fanservice-y, and the visual novel characters are pretty meh.

 

[Star Orpheus]

Hm, initially no, but those later character designs are pretty bad. Especially the female designs. Can you say: "Hot Pants?"

The game got pretty fanservice-y, and the visual novel characters are pretty meh.

Well I mean Litchi has been there since day 1.

 

[deadscreensky]

I always thought Blazblue was an attempt to appeal to the more general anime tastes where as Guilty Gear is more niche towards grunge and rock which made it more unique.

Yeah, BlazBlue is deliberately going for a general anime look. 'Deconstruction' is maybe too strong a term, but they were definitely playing around with various clichés and standards from the start. Jin is probably the best example, the classic gorgeous young hero dude who happens to be a monster with a completely twisted and broken mind. (He gets better, but they definitely didn't rush that.) They also take the usual implied homoeroticism and instead foreground it, while also amping up the creepiness. Noel is the standard cute heroine that is actually kind of annoying, disliked by nearly everybody, and literally a doll. Ragna the Bloodedge is the standard cool guy edgelord who is actually an enormous dork, easily manipulated by even dumb children, and constantly being made to look foolish. Etc. etc. I'm not sure if there's an ultimate goal to all of this pseudo-deconstruction, but there's clearly a purpose behind the somewhat generic surface qualities and I feel they do some interesting things with it.

Obviously none of this is clear from a first impression or probably even the actual gameplay, which is unfortunate but also unavoidable. I wasn't personally too turned off by the surface to give it a chance, but I completely understand why so many would. BlazBlue is crazy successful so clearly it didn't hurt Arc too much, but it might have done better in America if they had toned it down a little.

But I kind of disagree with you about Guilty Gear. That series is anime as all hell too, it's just more of a 80/90s thing. (Which makes sense, considering it's the older series.) There is more of a metal vibe to it, but it's catering to general audience tastes just as much as BlazBlue was. Like I don't know how people can complain about the young girls in BlazBlue while ignoring that Guilty Gear has been pushing the same type of thing for at least seventeen years now.

 

[cj_iwakura]

Street Fighter and Marvel sure have their fair share of tropes too.

 

[Surfside]

Never really payed any attention to BlazBlue. The only ASW games i played were the older Guilty Gears.
Thought of getting back into GG, but then i saw the Evo top 8, of BB. Man i really want to get into that game now, something just clicked with me. The design doesn't bother bother me. But that the game is still 60 bucks here, well that does.

 

[petran79]

But I kind of disagree with you about Guilty Gear. That series is anime as all hell too, it's just more of a 80/90s thing. (Which makes sense, considering it's the older series.) There is more of a metal vibe to it, but it's catering to general audience tastes just as much as BlazBlue was. Like I don't know how people can complain about the young girls in BlazBlue while ignoring that Guilty Gear has been pushing the same type of thing for at least seventeen years now.

With 80s/90s fanservice too.

Blazblue has a more explicit fanservice, just like the newer unfiltered anime series of that era . Actual image from Central Fiction image gallery. Chrono Phantasma has even Rachel with lingerie. GG would never go that far with May.

 

[Eidan]

Yes, I think the designs are hideous.

 

[sibarraz]

The original designs from Calamity Trigger were awesome, but now they got real bad

 

[Gitaroo]

Not at all, just finished watching Df killer instinct 4k video, that game does turn me off. Doesn't matter if its native 4k or 8k, that game hurt my eyes just by looking at it.

 

[kunonabi]

I didnt care for any of the the original character designs but some of the new ones have been pretty good. Nine got me to actually start playing the series.

 

[Kayo Police]

The artstyle in the 1st game was okay, whoever has done the art since then is terrible.

 

[kewlmyc]

I don't mind it, then again, I'm just used to the art style. Blazblue seems to be a giant mashup of modern and even classic anime designs and tropes. Hell, a year or so after Attack on Titan blew up, the added a character whose playstyle was a complete homage to the 3DMG in Attack on Titan. It's just what Blazblue does.

Even then, there are designs that I'm not a fan of, despite what they're trying to homage, like Platinum, Nu-12, and Mai.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

How can a game made in japan be weeaboo?

Not the OP but I take that to mean the designs definitely appeal to the high school age/deviantart school of anime design. Characters are super overdesigned to the point of parody, hitting every possible shonen anime trope as hard as possible. Guilty Gear does the same thing, but I think it's willingness to bring in influence outside of anime helps to dilute it.

Ragna and Rachel, specifically, were the two characters I remember thinking were "anime as fuck" back when the game first came out. Ragna especially, he's the epitome of the PG-13 badass that's so popular in the aforementioned circles. He literally goes by the title "The Bloodedge", how is that not trapper keeper fodder?

 

[Gentleman Jack]

The evolution of Noel's design throughout the series is not my favorite part of BB and is likely emblematic of what the OP is talking about.

 

[ButteryPie]

I absolutely hate the style that BlazBlue has with the over the top, thousand-buckle character themes, and the anime equivalent of "butt-rock" aesthetic, but I can't really lie, I love it.

Perhaps on a few layers if irony, but playing the visual novel singleplayer for Chrono Phantasma Extend with friends late at night was a treat. So much silly, convoluted writing, but it has its strokes of comedic genius.

Spoiler

Golden Iron Tager

had us howling even harder than we were already.

If it werent for that new crossover game coming out I would probably never consider buying another BlazBlue game again, but its a so-stupid-its-fun kind of thing.

 

[CO_Andy]

not me

 

[2+2=5]

Yes, some exceptions apart i definitively don't like the designs, newer Guilty Gear games too with the bed guy being the worst of all.

 

[Sorcerer Supreme]

i've always thought bb characters look awful.

i absolutely love guilty gear though.

 

[Type40]

This is how I feel about the shitty "realistic" look of MK and that DC fighting game. Soulless and plastic looking with no personality. SFV and the new MVC are encroaching on this area as well, neither look as good as Sf alpha and mvc2.

 

[InfiniteBento]

I'll always take anime fighting game aesthetics's over the looks of Mortal Kombat & similar titles.

 

[ClearMetal]

The art style is what drew me to the game years ago. I do not mind the way the character's designs have evolved over the years, except for Noel Vermillion. Short hair and beret, accept no substitutes.

I do prefer the overall aesthetics of Guilty Gear over that of BlazBlue, though. I sometimes feel they've gone a bit too far in exaggerating the characters' muscles and boobs (Sol and Baiken being the most prominent examples) when compared to their earlier designs. But I can't deny that this exaggerated art style is right up my alley and in fact how I like to draw characters myself.

 

[sn00zer]

Aesthetic are fine, I just found the game immediately more difficult to get into than Guilty Gear. You can be pretty casual in GG and have a good time, but BlazBlu felt way way too technical for me.

 

[BasilZero]

It actually draws me to the series.

 

[Swarna]

Guilty Gear is as far as I'm able to go because I don't get too strong of a weeaboo vibe.

You are a much stronger person than me.

And yes, it is a very divisive aesthetic.