I think Dust has some of the most spectacular animation in a video game, but yeah, something about the character art rubs me the wrong way. It could just be me wanting this game to be a lot more Don Bluthy than DeviantArty. Something about those eyes reminded me of American Tail or like an old Thundercats cartoon, but ultimately was not like I was hoping. And while it's not really an aesthetic I guess, I was kind of turned off by how some of the humor behind the banter was written and delivered. Kinda made me cringe. Speaking of which, I noticed practically the entire quick look comments and at least six pages of this forum talk about it being geared toward some furry porn. When there is over 400 comments in a single Giant Bomb feature, I know the talk's not gonna stop anytime soon. But please, just shut up.

Guys! I think we need to invent a new word. Furaphobic. It is done.

I think that some people assume that because people don't like the style of this game they don't like any anthropomorphic characters. I don't think that's true.

Like it or not there is a 'furry' style. It's hard to pinpoint what it is about it exactly but the style is there. Maybe it's just the anime style of anthropomorphic characters that seems like furry art, rather than a western style.

Either way I was never going to get the game because I don't have an xbox, but I have to agree with people that the style is off-putting. And not even because its so similar to a furry art style... just in general there is something I don't really like about it.

@MrKlorox said:

@Hunter5024 said:

Guys! I think we need to invent a new word. Furaphobic. It is done.

Anthropomorphobic Furry is probably a derogatory term or something.

You sir, have bested me at English today. However I will have my revenge.

The art style really doesn't strike me as any creepier than Star Fox or Sonic.

I don't really have a problem with anthropomorphic characters, I just think the character design is bad in general.

I'm not even bothered by the fact it reminds everyone of furries, it's the fact it looks and sounds like Disney that severely puts me off. Which is a shame cause it looks like an awesome game.

For some reason the really flat looking characters kinda bug me. The characters have really sharp outlines and simplistic color palettes, which clashes horribly with the fuzzy and indistinct shading. Stylistically I don't like the quality of the artwork.

It just looks bootleg as fuck. I dunno, I guess that's what I should be expecting anyways.

Regarding anthropomorphic characters, I thought it was a bit odd, but totally within bounds. I think the whole anti-furry thing is a knee jerk reaction more than anything else.

in b4 thread lock

surprised they haven't locked the quick look comments either (have they done that before?)

ITT: Everyone who says they wouldn't be embarrassed to be caught playing this is a liar, or has no friends.

Yeah, the character art and most backgrounds look like dogshit. 
 
Nice animation, though.

I was just thinking this... It's really not furry-bad, which I consider to be over-sexualisation, but something about the look of the characters turns me off big time, even though the gameplay looks great, and I love metroidvanias. The same thing happened to me with Braid. Something about the art design. But yeah, the animation is nice.

@MURDERSMASH said:

Don't even bother. He's not trying to argue a point. He's just trolling.

Fine then; we'll treat the subject of this game's art as if it were worthy of not being immediately considered as beneath contempt for a moment.

I was being facetious because it was silly for you to say that the character design of the flying sidekick thing didn't have any sexualisation in mind when clearly its figure is overly feminine, thus sexualised by definition. Is that the biggest problem with the art? Hell no.

A lot of people compare this guy's art to furry deviant art accounts, and there are pretty good reasons why. The same applies to many artists on deviant art that just do generic anime drawings. These are often people who are self-taught into drawing, but only work in a particular style that quickly becomes a crutch. They have a very hard time getting any better because they have no interest in styles outside of "anime" or "anime but entirely furry subjects", a perplexingly large fanbase considering how specific that is. The importance of doing figure drawing and focus on lifelike anatomy is paramount when learning how to draw people properly. This artist, while he has a lot of potential in animation and (is slowly getting there), doesn't actually know how to draw. He's also not very original: from the looks of Dust himself, his thinly-veiled Mary-sue is as generic as they come. Hence the strong reaction that people have; the art's so amateur that it's cringe-worthy.

@Gimbal_Lock: This has been stated before, and everyone seems to ignore it :\

People are weird when they're shown they're wrong.

I'm agreeing btw, if that isn't clear.

Even if he's not the best artist, from an objective standpoint that's hardly a reason for being "turned off" of the rest of the game. Dust seems to have its merits in gameplay terms, and I don't see how bad artwork is a big deal.

Great art style, interesting game.  Shame about all the people that have played as Sly Racoon, random bald space marine, cyborgs, minotaurs, Orcs, Elves or Dwarves are suddenly against being whatever the main character is.  Bloody logic, right there.

@Vegetable_Side_Dish said:

@TaliciaDragonsong said:

Great art style, interesting game. Shame about all the people that have played as Sly Racoon, random bald space marine, cyborgs, minotaurs, Orcs, Elves or Dwarves are suddenly against being whatever the main character is. Bloody logic, right there.

I think people get weirded-out when playing as a character that is intended to be a source of sexual desire that they don't identify with, like some people have a problem with the moeblob lolis in some Japanese games, for example. No matter the fact that, when viewed in a vacuum, anthropomorphic animals are pretty innocuous, they know about the intent or feelings behind them from the whole furry thing and so are looking at something that at best is unrelatable and foreign, and at worst repulses them. tl;dr It's the perception of the character, not the physical representation itself.

That's assuming people aren't misunderstanding the developer's views toward the characters. Looking at Dust objectively, it's not that bad about keeping sexual desire under wraps. Even then, most mainstream video games have a degree of sexualization. Just because the developer might get off on different stuff doesn't make the game bad.

I did get the same "ew furries" kinda feeling when I first saw this game, but to instantly latch onto it and criticize it is extreme. Bad art is a critique worthy point when discussing a video game. The developer's (supposed) sexual peccadilloes are not.

Sa@iFail said:

Even if he's not the best artist, from an objective standpoint that's hardly a reason for being "turned off" of the rest of the game. Dust seems to have its merits in gameplay terms, and I don't see how bad artwork is a big deal.

In the end, Dust might be a worthwhile experience, but that would be despite its art. Plenty of games have had people dismiss it due to art, because it is after all part of the overall experience. There's plenty of people out there who can't get into Dwarf Fortress because the "art" is too abstract. The Binding of Isaac, because the art is too crass. A Valley Without Wind, because the art is too "programmer art". Many PS1 games, because the art is fucking painful to watch warble around as the camera moves. And this game, because the art looks like the work of a DeviantArt user who's way too into Sonic the Hedgehog + anime, is in his 30's, probably has self-diagnosed Aspergers, and doesn't know how to draw.

@iFail said:

Even if he's not the best artist, from an objective standpoint that's hardly a reason for being "turned off" of the rest of the game. Dust seems to have its merits in gameplay terms, and I don't see how bad artwork is a big deal.

Because you have to look at the whole time you're playing the game. And lol at bringing up an "Objective standpoint" in response to an opinion.

I wonder myself if this Internet-wide obsession about furries (about the alleged group of people, not about the thing they are presumably in turn obsessed about) makes any sense. First off, Dust just looks like a cartoon. If I had to find an influence, this would be it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usagi_Yojimbo

But it's so interesting that the mythical furry, which might as well be a snark, for all of their prevalence in the actual, real life that exists, has become such a derided figure in Internet culture. So much teenage-like mob mentality about a group that doesn't even exist is borderline "the Reds are coming!" cold war paranoia, and it's fascinating. Even actual, professional reviews of this game hint at this, some to preemptively defend the game about it, some even to complain about it.

The game itself so far? It's pretty cool.

EDIT: I should clarify, before some Internet nitpicking nerd decides to reply, that I am not saying "furries" do not exist at all, whether in an ironic or legitimate way. I'm saying that they are rare to the point of irrelevance, sitting alongside coprophagia and genital self-mutilation, among the realm of stuff I don't need to get myself an opinion about.

I wonder if this is a generational thing. I honestly don't see how people can look at animated anthropomorphic animal characters and immediately make the connection to "furries" unless they didn't grow up with Looney Toons, Disney, and the like. Look at some old cartoons. Those shows had female animal characters who, shockingly, had female proportions. And outside of the occasional rabbit hunter, nobody was turned on by them.

It's like saying you shouldn't watch German scheisse porn because some Germans were Nazis. You people are sick.

I never meant for this to happen. Wow guys, this one got a little salty really fast.

Before this thread gets locked I'd like to clarify my original statements slightly. I never mentioned the furry thing in thinking of a sexualization of the characters. It has been mentioned many times in this thread since I started it, so I'll try to not be derivative of what has come before, but what I meant by my original statements was not that the art was too sexual or too Deviant art-ish(?) for my tastes. I simply think that the art is a little bland or generic. Actually I think I wasted a good word a sentence too early, because the perfect word to describe my opinion of Dust's art style is derivative. Every thing has come before and it just seems tepid to me.

All that said I would never suggest that I was taking anything away from the achievement that is Dust. I bought the game and am having fun with it. As has been said the voice acting is fine if not great. The combat system is really great and everything feels really fluid. The backgrounds and enemy designs are beautiful.

It's just the derivative big-eyed-ears-and-tail-anthropomorphized-furred protagonist and npc's that kind of give me a creeptastic vibe while I play this.

Just opinions guys, have a good day.

PS: Nobody mentioned my favorite thing about this:

I wouldn't be embarrassed for anyone to see the images on this screen, but the words. Seriously, read that sentence. I'm a grown man and seeing writing like that in a video game kind of makes me cringe. I'm sure in context with everything else in the game -- wall-chickens, dialog referencing the button mashy nature of similar games -- this is a funny moment in the game, but just reading the words off the page - or the screen as it were - makes me a little reticent to defend this game.

@Gimbal_Lock: what you said ... hehe

although i think the rest of the game looks to be high quality , definitely has a muramasa/odin sphere look to the gameplay and structure , but clearly has more fluid controls than both of those games .. the art style is definately not a dealbreaker but its also a letdown , but i dunno .. that part is entirely subjective ..ill be interested in playing it if it comes to pc just for the gameplay , its not like a game has to have gorgeous graphics to be fun , and theres plenty of gorgeous games that arent that fun at all , i thought trine 2 looked AMAZING but gameplay wise was pretty much the same shit again and again.

but yeah those man-bear-pig npcs loook preeety ridiculous , the hippo guys at the start looked charming enuff

@NoelVeiga: No the primary art influence isn't Usagi Yojimbo, It's straight up deviantart "furry fandom". Whether that's a negative thing or just some internet tribal bullshit, I can't say because I have no opinion either way.

@NoelVeiga: Have you been to 4chan? Or deviant art? They really aren't that rare at all. I mean have you heard of fursonas? There was even an online fursona runescape like game, I forget the name of it, but I remember seeing a thread about it.

@GnomeonFire said:

@iFail said:

Even if he's not the best artist, from an objective standpoint that's hardly a reason for being "turned off" of the rest of the game. Dust seems to have its merits in gameplay terms, and I don't see how bad artwork is a big deal.

Because you have to look at the whole time you're playing the game. And lol at bringing up an "Objective standpoint" in response to an opinion.

You're entitled to an opinion, but it's passing judgement on a work. When Jeff or Ryan review a game on this site, that review is an opinion, but they obviously strive to be objective. I guess this is an informal setting so it doesn't matter. Eh.

@iFail said:

@GnomeonFire said:

@iFail said:

Even if he's not the best artist, from an objective standpoint that's hardly a reason for being "turned off" of the rest of the game. Dust seems to have its merits in gameplay terms, and I don't see how bad artwork is a big deal.

Because you have to look at the whole time you're playing the game. And lol at bringing up an "Objective standpoint" in response to an opinion.

You're entitled to an opinion, but it's passing judgement on a work. When Jeff or Ryan review a game on this site, that review is an opinion, but they obviously strive to be objective. I guess this is an informal setting so it doesn't matter. Eh.

Yeah I guess. I actually prefer a highly opinionated review to an "objective" one; it's usually more honest and let's face it, more fun to read.

I think it's ridiculous consider anthropomorphic the same as "furries" and probably to that extent "yiff".

Being turned off by the art style is fair and all, but being turned off by the art style because it reminds you of "furries" is just silly in my opinion.

EDIT: I also see a lot of people mistakenly considering furry being something sexualized, there are plenty of yiffing on the Internet, but there are also plenty of people who are furries and have fursonas, that have no sexual interest in the subject matter, but are just fascinated by the anthropomorphic ideas.

I guess all the people being turned off by the anthropomorphic characters in the game, also hate most Disney movies, Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and a whole lot of other cartoons...

@NickFerg said:

~snip~

I wouldn't be embarrassed for anyone to see the images on this screen, but the words. Seriously, read that sentence. I'm a grown man and seeing writing like that in a video game kind of makes me cringe. I'm sure in context with everything else in the game -- wall-chickens, dialog referencing the button mashy nature of similar games -- this is a funny moment in the game, but just reading the words off the page - or the screen as it were - makes me a little reticent to defend this game.

I know what you mean. More often than not, I'm more embarrassed by cheesy dialogue or names. It happened a few times for me when playing through Tales of Graces, I just wanted to hold my face in my hands at some of the cringe worthy dialogue and cheese.

@Village_Guy said:

I think it's ridiculous consider anthropomorphic the same as "furries" and probably to an extent "yiff".

Being turned off by the art style is fair and all, but being turned off by the art style because it reminds you of "furries" is just silly in my opinion.

What I just read.

Being turned off by the art style is fair and all, but being turned off by the art style is silly.

@GnomeonFire said:

@Village_Guy said:

I think it's ridiculous consider anthropomorphic the same as "furries" and probably to an extent "yiff".

Being turned off by the art style is fair and all, but being turned off by the art style because it reminds you of "furries" is just silly in my opinion.

What I just read.

Being turned off by the art style is fair and all, but being turned off by the art stylle is silly.

I think he meant that being turned off by shit art is ok, but being turned off by furries is silly.

i just don't understand why the people who hate the art style keep bringing it up, and rubbing it in, and it just speaks of some pathetic insecurity they have rather than some righteous holy crusade they apparently think it is. i'm personally sorry to keep carrying on with it in my own way, but it just rubs me the wrong way. is it really that important to you guys? do you really need to bash on this game so much and in doing so attempt to bring down the one guy who made it and put a blemish on what should be a great day for him? (he posts here btw) articulately explaining why you don't like it and MOVING ON is something i can understand; i may be miffed that people dismiss it so out of hand but that's more my problem than theirs. but dragging it on and on is just tedious. we know it's furry inspired (in a very loose sense). yes we know the guy did more "traditional" furry art in the past. yes we know it (supposedly) reeks of deviantart. you don't need to repeat that every couple of posts like it's some amazing original insight. please move on (and i'll try to do the same).

I think the art looks gorgeous and I'm hoping to pick up this game soon.

@ripelivejam: that was a bold statement

Here's an insight, as I see it, to why the art style would turn someone off.

First, it's Art. Art is art not because it's just pretty drawings or something aesthetic. It's something that when you look at it, evokes an emotional response. Emotional responses are the opposite to being rational.

In this case, the emotional response from a lot of people is "Hey this reminds of that furry stuff". And for a lot people that furry stuff is creepy or makes them think of a 40 year old bald dude masturbating to animals in his basement. I'm not saying these things are true, it's just the irrational response evoked by the art style. If anyone/anything is to blame it's the internet and the loud people on it who insist everything is one extreme or the other.

I don't care if it's called furry or not but I dislike it. I think the eyes are mostly what bothers me as it's something I'd see on bad anime fan art. Also for the most part I don't like anthropomorphic characters either. I mentioned this before but the style of characters in this game is strange and off putting. It's hard to put my finger on it but it's not something you get when playing a game like Sly Cooper. When I look at pictures of Sly Cooper and his crew I think they look pretty cool and funny - but in this game there is that weird cringe factor.

Either way it's definitely something a lot of people feel. On top of it I just don't think it's that amazing of a game. Best of Summer of Arcade? I dunno it's just basically a side scrolling beat 'em up. Theres not too much depth there and I don't see myself beating up on pretty mindless enemies for too long no matter how cool the combat is.

@ripelivejam: It's less to do with attacking the art. And more to do with the people who insist on denying it or creating strawmen with other works of art, which is irksome.

@Humanity: You're playing it right now and not enjoying it? That sucks, man. Sorry to hear that. I've only heard from other people who have bought the game and been enjoying it.

@NoelVeiga said:

EDIT: I should clarify, before some Internet nitpicking nerd decides to reply, that I am not saying "furries" do not exist at all, whether in an ironic or legitimate way. I'm saying that they are rare to the point of irrelevance, sitting alongside coprophagia and genital self-mutilation, among the realm of stuff I don't need to get myself an opinion about.

Apparently you've never been to Deviant Art. These people are far more common than you may think, even if much of the time the sexual perversion aspect is absent (although that's something many people just want to keep private, you know?)

@Village_Guy said:

I guess all the people being turned off by the anthropomorphic characters in the game, also hate most Disney movies, Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and a whole lot of other cartoons...

Again, there's a huge difference between anthropomorphic characters and furries. The huge anime eyes and breasts should be a big give away as to why the creator designed these characters this way. I personally don't have so much of a problem with it, that it would stop me playing the game.. but claiming it's no different from the likes of an average Disney movie is just being naive.

Then again, I'm noticing most of the people defending the art style have some sort of pony or furry character as their avatars.

@GnomeonFire said:

Here's an insight, as I see it, to why the art style would turn someone off.

First, it's Art. Art is art not because it's just pretty drawings or something aesthetic. It's something that when you look at it, evokes an emotional response. Emotional responses are the opposite to being rational.

In this case, the emotional response from a lot of people is "Hey this reminds of that furry stuff". And for a lot people that furry stuff is creepy or makes them think of a 40 year old bald dude masturbating to animals in his basement. I'm not saying these things are true, it's just the irrational response evoked by the art style. If anyone/anything is to blame it's the internet and the loud people on it who insist everything is one extreme or the other.

Yeah, it reminds me a bit of those who have had bad experiences with anime in the past. So, when they see a show or game that looks "anime-like" to them, they'll often just get thoughts of moody protagonists or tentacles and hentai. People definitely make these kinds of associations, and that's tough for someone who enjoys something that can somewhat resemble odder entertainment. For the creator of this game, he clearly just prefers this style of character, and from what I've seen, he uses it admirably. But it's certainly a style that some will like and some won't. I hope it won't stop people from trying the game though. It's still an amazing thing, especially in this day and age of huge blockbusters made by massive teams. It's nice to see that hand-crafted games are still alive and well today. :)

Are we only talking about the character design here? Because I can kind of get behind that based on what I've seen and the little bit I've played. Specifically, the secondary characters and Fidget. The solid, glassy eye thing stood out to me. Maybe it's a good thing you don't see Dust's face. I really like the design of Dust, though.

I have no *idea* what you're talking about if you're saying the design of everything else is bad. It's the best looking 2D game I've ever played. Stunning at times.

@envane said:

@ripelivejam: that was a bold statement

Badum bum tssh!

In all seriousness folks don't judge a book by its cover. Yeah Fidget has some hips. So does Minerva Mink In fact Minerva Mink has a distinctly feminine body that has a very Jessica Rabbit-esque quality. Now just becauise of something like this:

Are you going to deprive yourself of the amazing 90's cartoon show Animaniacs? If you did you're missing out and I think that it's a similar situation with Dust. Unless at some point Fidget starts *ahem* "fidgeting" in a fashion that is unsuitable for younger audiences I'd say that the art style is largely harmless.

@GnomeonFire said:

Here's an insight, as I see it, to why the art style would turn someone off.

First, it's Art. Art is art not because it's just pretty drawings or something aesthetic. It's something that when you look at it, evokes an emotional response. Emotional responses are the opposite to being rational.

In this case, the emotional response from a lot of people is "Hey this reminds of that furry stuff". And for a lot people that furry stuff is creepy or makes them think of a 40 year old bald dude masturbating to animals in his basement. I'm not saying these things are true, it's just the irrational response evoked by the art style. If anyone/anything is to blame it's the internet and the loud people on it who insist everything is one extreme or the other.

The underlined part I agree with. I can't really explain why I don't like the look of the characters, I just know how I feel about them. I felt the same way about Bastion (which much of this game's art reminds me of). I thoroughly dislike the design of the characters and monsters in Bastion, but I think everything else about the visuals are great, which is exactly how I feel about Dust. Some people seem to be claiming that disliking a game's art style isn't enough to warrant such a negative reaction about the game, but I think it does. Everyone finds different aspects of games important to them, so why can't someone refuse to play this game because of how the characters look? I know I've refused to play games because I didn't like their art styles, why should this game be any different?

The last part of your statement I don't agree with, or at least that's not how I feel about the game. It's not because the characters are so-called "furries," it's just that I plain don't like the look of them. There are plenty of games and movies that I've loved with anthropomorphic characters (one that comes to mind is Banjo Kazooie, which I absolutely fucking adore), but the characters in Dust just don't look good to me. To me, it's not about the supposed furry-ness of the characters that I don't like about them, it's just that I don't like them. If the characters were people (or at least fully humanoid in appearance) but were drawn similarly with that sort of faux anime style, I still wouldn't like it.

People are welcome to love or hate all that furry business, but that's a completely separate argument. It has nothing to do with how I feel about the game's visuals.

I like what I saw of the gameplay and I'm seriously considering buying the game after I'm done with Darksiders II, but I have to admit that the character design is just not my cup of tea. I think that there is, however, a clear difference between the design choices for the characters in this game and those of, say, Sonic the Hedgehog, which some people mentioned as being the same. I don't have anything against any kind of anthropomorphic animals (which, again, includes, but does not limit itself to, furries), though, and I still wouldn't like the art style if they were actual humans. The in-game models are fine, but the dialogue portraits don't look very good if you ask me.

If having this opinion makes me a troll that needs to "rub it in"... so be it.

I think the character design is awful. Although a lot of the enemies have some really nice unique designs. I'm not a fan of giant anime eyes, the art style is incredibly reminiscent of furry art, and the characters look like they were drawn by an amateur. That said, the game itself is fantastic. It plays great, it sounds great, and aside from the character's themselves it looks great.

A little at first, but I'm finding it kind of charming now. Doesn't bother me as much as others.

i dont like anime animals . the flow of the animation is cool though.

for what its worth, its prolly a good idea to get the demo no matter what you think; i think you will find your self drawn in to it no matter what, its excellent.

@TaliciaDragonsong said:

@Binman88: If you don't like it, you don't like it.

Finally, the penny drops.