When I was younger I had friends that played all the Zelda games but when they heard Zelda Windwaker coming out they rejected it just cause it looked more cartoon-like. We was in our early teens and looking tough as males was priority number one.
I'm interested to know as i've never been turned off fully by the art style of a game but im curious to know if it degraded your experience in anyway?
The only game i can think of being is call of duty, i didnt like all the brown/gray colours lookingh too bland. Even then i Enjoyed the gameplay somewhat.
It wasn't the only factor that turned me off it but what little interest I had in Star Wars: The Old Republic (the MMO) left my body once I saw how it looked. I was a huge KOTOR 1 and 2 fan and Star Wars WoW, cartoony look and all, just isn't at all what I was after. Last year I actually played through a lot of the Agent storyline in SWTOR after learning it was written by my favourite SW author and had a lot of fun despite the bad art. The character models look like real dumb though. Drama school glue on beards and V shaped torsos on "strong" characters.
Octopath Traveller for me. Everything about that game ticks the boxes I want for a game but I just didn't like looking at it. Something about the backgrounds and effects just turned me off.
I've always felt a little bit dismissive of modern indie pixel art games because I grew up on the N64 and didn't really have the nostalgia for 2D games, so when we were getting tons of pixel art indie games I wrote a lot of it off. That's not to say I wouldn't play any(I loved Shovel Knight and enjoyed what I played of Mega Man 9, among other games), but they had a lot more to prove for me, it was kinda like the modern equivalent of all those dirt cheap unity asset flip horror games on steam these days, you could instantly tell rather than a distinct art style it was more of "well this is the cheapest way to go" decision.
Oh and 343 Halo games, I was kinda out of the console world by the time 4 came out but the art direction helped me ignore it. I finally played it when the PC version came out in the MCC and it's fine in the campaign, don't love the covenant designs but the protheans look pretty good. The multiplayer however, I find customizing my multiplayer spartan and exercise in trying to find the least ugly armor pieces possible, which just results in my spartan just having the ugliest version of the default MC armor.
The Zeno Clash games. The game play is fun, but the art design is just too gross for me to like. Also the CDI Zelda games which weren't that bad to me, but the freakish, perverted like cartoon animation that was used still sticks with me today. Ma Boi!
Nier Automata seems like a game whose themes and story I would really dig but the drab artstyle and color palette and the sexy, sexy anime character designs really turn me off.
The first thing that comes to mind for this is Danganronpa. I love anime of all shapes and sizes but I just don't like the look of these characters. What I dislike the most is that I get the sense that they made them look repulsive on purpose just so the writer can wag their finger at you and be like "Ah ah ah, these characters are deeper than you'd think." Here's a wild idea: on top of having an interesting game structure and textured character back stories, also make the characters look good. When so many VN/Otome games try to be subversive with their art design it just makes me not want to engage with any of them.
Does UI count? I've never been able to get into MMOs because I just hate the look of their UI. They're always so busy and bland. No style. Just a bunch of bars and hotkeys across the bottom of the screen.
I think there's also just a lot of boring and bland art that typically happens when a game that was once 2D goes to 3D. The most recent example being Advance Wars. I've never played those original games, and the look of that remake alone does not inspire me to check that thing out.
I don't know why I enjoy writing these random lists of video game opinions no one cares about. But here goes.
- I was also in the anti-Wind Waker camp as a teen. It felt like a slap in the face after the amazing Space World 2000 demo that drove my anticipation for (then) next-gen Zelda through the roof. Of course, I eventually played it and it was quite good and the environments were beautiful (although I'm still not a big fan of the toon faces with big cat eyes.) In retrospect it looks better than Twilight Princess - although I loved it at the time and probably still would, I have to admit that game has a lot of ugly brown textures everywhere. The more recent games strike a nice balance, I think.
- I enjoyed Psychonauts a lot but I hate the art style of the characters. They're all so grotesque in a 90's cartoon-like way. I think this style would work in a 2D hand-drawn aesthetic or maybe with cel-shading, but in plastic toy-like 3D it is just off-putting. (I still want to play the sequel, though.)
- The Gears of War games might be fun but I was also turned off by the over-the-top masculinity. Everyone looks like a football player.
- I'm not a big fan of Akira Toriyama's art style so I found the Dragon Quest XI demo to be a bit bland.
Every "remastered" Final Fantasy has really bothered me. I'm often tempted to buy, say, FFVIII when it's on sale, only to remember I should look at screenshots again and it just looks wrong. It's not as bad as the 2D ports but I hate the crisp, clean 3D models against those dusty, blurry PS1 matte paintings. It's half-assed.
Yes, but I am having trouble thinking of examples. The games I am thinking of didn't put me off for say, cultural/personal reasons, but simply I did not like looking at the graphics/art.
I can in fact think of one example, though it is the victim of not ageing well, instead of something contemporary. And That would be System Shock 2.
I'll look at my Steam catalogue for further inspiration...
Yes, of course, Bloodborne is a game I have mentioned recently. It's whole graphics and character depiction made me say nope, just some months back.
And @development reminded me I quit New Vegas some years back when I got to the trenches towards the end of the game, and Everything was brown.
edit- And since I keep adding on, another example has crossed my mind. I do not readily play JRPG's. But during the course of the Persona 4 Endurance Run, I did take to the characters and the story. That included their character models, in both cut scenes and regular play. However I cannot say near the same for Persona 3 and 5. There I find the character models annoying. I don't know why, but that is how it plays from what I have seen of the games. Something about Persona 4 was easier to deal with, and for me to even care a bit.
Never been turned of 100%, best example might be Dishonored 1 for me (but I played and liked it and in Dishonored 2 I even liked the art style).
But I wanna mention a weird one: Star Wars Squadrons. They easily could have made very realistic looking cockpits with realistic materials, why did they go with this slightly cartoony material shaders and colors??
I gradually became put off by the Telltale games because of the samey art style. It worked originally, especially for stuff like Sam & Max and Monkey Island but after a while it just got a bit old!
I really don't like the artwork from the Salt & Sanctuary folk. I know Jason loves these games , but i was sort of surprised to hear him call out how pretty their next game looked. I think i could sort of get on board with the gameplay at least, but don't know in which universe it can look pretty.
Also all these generic high fantasy anime games that put their big eyed character portraits to the forefront when they talk as if it's a visual novel. I don't mind anime in general, especially when it's as beautifully done as Ni No Kuni, but when the production values are a tad lower and they have to do those visual novel character portrait moves, i'm turned off.
Yes! If I dislike the look of a game I cannot enjoy it. I’ve tried.
1.) Dark Souls III. Played 200 hours trying to like it and realizing I just hated how everything was hyper specular/shiny or washed out, with tiny details that get muddy in even 4k. I respect the details. I don’t respect the art direction that makes those details ugly. Kinda worried cause Elden Ring’s seemingly looking to have the exact sort of shaders with even more fine detail.
2.) Into the Breach. I’m sorry. I know. I’m sorry. The art style isn’t even bad! It’s good! It just does *nothing* for me, and the game feels bad for me because of it.
3.) RE4/Fallout 3. Great games with art direction summarized as: “Hmm. But what if it was brown?” Feel sick playing them.
4.) Rogue Legacy. The gameplay is good, but I can't enjoy it because the art style does nothing for me. I have nothing against pixel art. I like a lot of pixel art. Rogue Legacy 1 just feels overly simplified... or something.
There’s more but you get the idea.
Oh found one more:
Any chibi game/game that sexualizes minors, or any anime-styled game that makes their women characters look absurd with insane lingerie accompanied by very fucked up gender roles. I get it hahaha she’s actually 4,000 y/o. Right. But what’s the real reason these games keep getting made? I don’t get. Never got it. Why do people like these things? Is it genuine creepiness or nostalgia for creepiness? Either way it’s bad.
fortnite and overwatch, i suppose more recently 'redfall.'
cartoony humans by way of pixar is a look i'm really starting to tire of. so many mobile games ape this style too- the tinfoil hat version of me wonders if it's a design aesthetic that tests particularly well in specific target demos.
Binding of Isaac was definitely a game where the graphics made me stop playing the game. That "simple gross" art-style is a pretty major turn-off for me.
Return of the Obra Dinn is another one. Not because it looks bad or isn't a cool idea, but something about how those graphics are done gives me a migraine after about 15 minutes. I couldn't actually play it.
@development: Dark Souls 3 is a big one for me now that I think about it, can probably remember a good 70-80% of all the areas and bosses from Dark Souls 1 and 2, but 3 I got like 20% tops, and that's even after replaying about half of it like 3 months ago!
Binding of Isaac was definitely a game where the graphics made me stop playing the game. That "simple gross" art-style is a pretty major turn-off for me.
this is actually a great example i entirely forgot about. the whole aesthetic of that game had a specific flavor of disgust it was going for- and for those that dig it, i'm sure it was rad/hilarious- but for me it just had a slow corrosive effect where after a few hours i was like, 'i think i'm good on poop, fistulae, and congenital disease.' and i never went back.
For how much shit Danielle Riendeau got from the shithead brigade for writing one sentence about it, I'll say that art style is pandering in the grossest way possible. Like '90s wrestling pandering, where if you're not responding to it, it's actively turning you off.
I think it achieves what it wants by being incredibly heteronormatively sexy, but what if I don't WANT a boner while I'm playing my side-scrolling beat-em-up? What if I don't WANT a game to be TRYING to arouse me while I'm playing it??
@undeadpool: It's a damn shame about Dragon's Crown, because it's a great game but I just couldn't deal with the absurdly sexualized women.
I'm surprised to see so much hate for pixel art, because it's one of my favorite art styles in games. That's probably because I grew up with the 8-bit and 16-bit consoles.
I have a hard time with any Minecraft-style look in games. Blocky voxels don't do anything for me.
Definitely some good examples already mentioned in this thread, but the one that immediately sprang to mind is Slay the Spire. I love Dicey Dungeons and various other roguelites. I know I would enjoy playing Slay the Spire and have heard nothing but praise for it. However, all the screenshots and gameplay snippets I have seen makes it look like an early PS2 game got converted to 2D with some sharpness filters on. I can't spend money on a game which looks like that. I just can't. I will concede that the art style is original, and quite a lot of work probably went into it, but it still looks dull and ugly to me.
@nuttism: You're not wrong. That game has put all it's attribute points on the gameplay and none on the presentation. Luckily i enjoyed getting through it all with the different characters , and like how different each character plays, but that's a very ugly game indeed.
Oh, one more graphical thing i dislike a lot.
These Ubisoft games, they love to use a white outline around enemies. Naturally, a targeting system like that has been done in many games, but for some reason it really annoys me in Ubisoft games because these games are just trying so hard to look realistic and rich in detail, but then these super intricately designed characters with their scarfs and colourful shirts and satchels and pouches get encased by this white outline as if they got copy/pasted into the scene. I hate that stuff.
Look, I know this is going to sound crazy and I'm fully aware how stupid it sounds but for me it's Cuphead.
I know it's amazing how they do the visuals and the game by all accounts is a blast to play but I hate the art style. I think this mainly dates back to being a small kid and having old cheap VHS compilations of old ass cartoons and that is all me and my brother would watch. One of them was a bunch of black and white cartoons in the same art style of Cuphead and they freaked me out. I don't think they were meant to be freaky but as a very young child they left a distinct unnerving impression on me that has stayed with me to this day, so much so that even though I know Cuphead is a great game I can not bring myself to play it. I've played all kinds of ugly ass games over the years too with no issue.
When Nintendo mentioned Metroid Prime at E3 2015, I was excited. When they showed this, that excitement disappeared in a flash. This would have been much better suited to be on Wii U with a realistic art style, not the super deformed kiddy stuff presented here.
Binding of Isaac was definitely a game where the graphics made me stop playing the game. That "simple gross" art-style is a pretty major turn-off for me.
I feel this. I get that's what that guy is into and I respect the choice but I'm just not into it.
As for me, I know this might be a weird one but I really don't like the way "realistic" shooters tend to look. I can explain, these are really nitpicky but they bug me
blurgh
The CoD look for the past decade has really put me off. It's this obsession with using super high-res textures and tons of specular everywhere. It's kind of the modern version of the "shiny rocks" criticism leveled at UE3 games. The problem is that these are console games and the art just doesn't look good at low resolutions - you get this gross oily sheen on everything and it just aliases all over the place. They also love to load up the frame with tons of super fine details that just blur and shimmer constantly. It's becoming less of an issue now that everything just runs at 4K but I still don't like it. I also don't love the jam on the screen thing but that's just me and admittedly that has been toned down a lot from the first modern warfare.
I feel like every Frostbite shooter has this weird dark haloing around any viewmodels and it's always seems off to me, like the weapons are always just a bit too dark or something? The animations are also a little weird, I dunno what it is but nothing ever feels right. I do think these games are nicer to look at in stills than CoD's hyper-cinematic direction
Fallout its its own special kind of ugly that I don't feel I even need to justify. They're smeary, dated, clunky messes.
I love shooters and I play a ton of them, but I've found myself sticking with more cartoonish or fantasy vibes (Destiny 2, Amid Evil, Team Fortress 2, Overwatch, and the new Wolfenstein and Doom games come to mind immediately) and every time I check one of these big franchises out the art direction super turns me off
The art in the games by the developer Zoink. Stick it to the Man, Zombie Vikings, and Flipping Death. I'd describe it as "What if Double Fine made a game, but it just looked fucking gross".
Just started playing Slay the Spire and it is surprising how amateurish it all looks for how popular it is. I started playing Griftlands around the same time, and it's hard not to be like well they seem to be pretty similar, but this one looks so much prettier.
Anything Blizzard makes, or anything with a similar art style (like Darksiders).
It's not even that I think it's bad, I just find that overly chunky, overly smooth look utterly charmless. There's something sterile about it. Diablo 3 I think looked better, maybe because it seemed like it had a bit more in the way of texture to it. Though Blizzard games aren't my cup of tea in general, so it's not like it's ever been the only thing putting me off.
I absolutely hate how Games Workshop replaced Warhammer Fantasy with a game using miniatures that look like they were designed by Blizzard.
Oh yeah, and the trend in the Xbox 360 era for putting film grain over everything probably put me off a few as well. I hate that shit.
It's understandable that publishers will often go generic with a game's art style though; the art style in some of the games mentioned further up the thread are a big part of the appeal for those games for me.
Listen Vanillaware is a company of fabulous art and artists and most of their games are beautiful but I think Dragon's Crown was just allowed to take everything precisely one step too far and it's a bit much.
But to be fair I also didn't like playing it and if I did I'm not confident it would have been a deal breaker either.
i've found myself getting increasingly dismissive of indie games with that flat, simplified, pseudo-cel shaded look with limited or themed color palette. hard to describe, but i know it when i see it. other games like cruelty squad that purposefully try to take the early 90s aesthetic and crank the ugly up to max will never find me in their player-base, regardless of how good a game it might actually be. another recent one is death trash, which just looks like everything is coated in meat, blood, shit, and garbage. no thanks.
otherwise, visual style is generally not enough to be a deal-breaker for me, even if it is ridiculously bland or semi-busted.
A lot of those sexy anime games like Neptunia . Also the DOA Volleyball games etc. They just look like they're made for weirdos
Not that I'm defending creepy anime bullshit, but what's wrong with being lonely?
I didn't say people can't feel lonely. What I am saying is that I don't have any desire to play any game where it's clear that the girls are meant to look underaged to appeal to a niche demographic. The gameplay could be the best in the world, but when I see an underdressed anime girl that's clearly a teenager, I know I don't want to play that game.
I'm enjoying Thirteen Sentinels: Aegis Rim, but even that pushes it a bit by making them naked inside the mechs.
One of the very few games that are generally acclaimed but completely lost me because of their look is Salt & Sanctuary.
I'm a huge Souls fan, love drab and muted color palettes and I also love indie games with deliberate art styles, but S&S simply looked bad, washed out, blurry, inconsistent and amateurish.
I immediately noticed it was these guys when their new game was announced this E3.
@laughingman: It really is! It's the spiritual sequel to the Capcom D&D beat-em-ups that I've always wanted, but it fails the Spouse Test that MK9 also failed: would I be embarrassed to play it in front of my spouse?
A lot of those sexy anime games like Neptunia . Also the DOA Volleyball games etc. They just look like they're made for weirdos
Not that I'm defending creepy anime bullshit, but what's wrong with being lonely?
I didn't say people can't feel lonely...
But loneliness seems to be the most common reason for certain anime fans going that far down the weeb well, using MyAnimeList as a point a reference and those who take anime fandom as seriously as some folks around here take video games; meaning to a fault. So you're not wrong by calling them "weirdos", 'cause, trust me, I've seen some shit over the years that fully justifies the label where Neptunia, DoA Xtreme and Thirteen Sentinels are safe by comparison (some of which I'm genuinely surprised that this site has listed). I just wanted to give an explanation as a jaded weirdo with discerning taste.
There's some stuff mentioned in here that I genuinely love looking at. Someone mentioned Octopath Traveler and I loved looking at that game.
Salt and Sanctuary has been mentioned a few times and I'm going to have to agree on that one. In this case, it's not exactly the art style but I felt like the entire game was simply too dark. It felt like the edges of the screen were really dark which made the whole thing feel claustrophobic and hard to keep track of in a way I really didn't like.
I wish games that had an "anime" art style would diversify a bit. Persona and Ni No Kuni have proven that you can look like anime without also looking like Tales Of games. I won't say this turns me away from a game, but also I don't think I've played any games with this kind of anime-ish art style... ever? Maybe? Except for some of Symphonia and Berseria.
Generally, though, I won't be turned away by a game's art style so much as I will by its visual clarity and performance. If everything in a game is clear and easy to parse and performs well, I'll probably be able to look past any issues I may have with the art style. This doesn't mean I don't like realistic-looking games, but if I always feel like I'm going a bunch of pixel-hunting just to spot something I'm not going to like it much. I think the Far Cry thing of looking through binoculars and putting an icon over everything's head is a crutch for developers making a detailed, realistic look without also knowing how to make that look easily discernible. And, as far as I'm concerned, higher resolutions and framerates are vastly more important than adding an absurd amount of detail to everything.
For me it's games with an art style like RimWorld or Prison Architect. I absolutely hate it to the point I find it distracting. Not even sure why I hate it so much. It's super frustrating too because I like Dwarf Fortress and management games. I can handle graphics mods for Dwarf Fortress looking very simple.
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