Your five favorite art directions?

So I just beat a Zelda game (Wind Waker (GC ver.)) for the first time and one of the biggest joy of playing it was just being in the world and taking in the artistry and the craftsmanship of the visuals. The thing is 12 years old and I would still rank it among one of my favorite graphical experiences. The character animation, facial expressions, and "particle" effects all feel so good to the eyes. Also, I finally get the appeal of the series although some things frustrated me a ton. Lol, I know I'm 25 years late to the party but I'm glad regardless.

Other games that really do it for in the art department:

• FF12 - perfect merging of art and limited tech. such an elegant, gorgeous, and massive world with beautifully rendered people in it. personally i think it's the best looking ps2 game and a hd remake would prove that out right.
• Ico - first game to give me that ghibli feeling in a game. cool yet warm.
• Portal 2 - the sterile sci-fi look is one of my favorites and this game does that but manages to inject full of personality into it.
• Bioshock - so inspired. fell in love with it the moment i saw it.

El Shaddai always springs to mind when talking about art.

Prince of Persia '08

Dust: An Elysian Tale

Braid

And you know what, Bioshock: Infinite was rather striking. That's just off the top of my head.

I've thought about this specifically with some games but I have a terrible memory, so here's some right off the top of my head.

• Street Fighter 4
• Sly Cooper 3: Honor Among Thieves
• Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 (seems to emulate anime perfectly)
• Grow Home
• World of Warcraft

Editing because I'm remembering some more games (some from the newer comments)

• Viking: Battle for Asgard
• Alien: Isolation
• Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
• Demon's Souls
• Doom 3

There's more cool art than I could ever attempt to remember on the spot. But I'll just throw out what comes to mind first

• Journey
• Okami
• Prince of Persia 08
• Muramasa
• Dark Souls

Seems about right, though I bet someone is gonna give me an "HOW COULD I FORGET" moment in the following posts.

• The Neverhood/Skullmonkeys/Armikrog (I really, really like claymation)
• Bad Day on the Midway
• Obsidian
• BioShock
• Rise of the Triad (the original. Admittedly, this pick is pure nostalgia. Those foggy, surreal levels trigger strong memories in me)

Edit: I'm really liking the look of Dropsy as well. Very LucasArts. I hope it gets a QL, as I've been having a lot of fun with it, and it seems to be slipping under people's radars.

Off the top of my head

ICO

Okami

Halo CE

Dark Souls

Windwaker

Xcom

Windwaker

Ni No Kuni

Bioshock Infinite

Journey

Witcher 2

Red Dead Redemption

Metal Gear Solid

Final Fantasy Tactics (Vagrant Story is great looking too)

Grim Fandango

FEZ

Quantum Conundrum

Super Mario 3 (the All Stars version)

Super Mario Galaxy

Rayman Legends

Starcraft cutscenes

TLoZ Windwaker (HD I guess if that's not cheating)

TLoZ Minish Cap

Alien Isolation

Borderlands

The Jak series

Deus Ex Human Revolution

Silent Hill

Dark Souls

Hmmmmmm

Okami

Final Fantasy X (VIII was really close for this spot)

Ni No Kuni

Persona 4 (although I might pick 3 on a different day)

I guess the Mass Effect series is 5, I don't think there's one thing in it that's really mind blowing but it does a really good job of feeling like a cohesive world with distinct, cool looking races

In addition to everything mentioned, I'd add the following five:

• Daedalic's 2D Adventure games of which Night of the Rabbit is my visual favorite being inspired by Disney's Xerox made films like Robin Hood and The Rescuers
• I don't believe anyone has mentioned Limbo yet. Despite the look being a bit overdone these days, at the time it was really brilliant
• Gunman Clive is a great reference to the very early days of cinema, specifically the hand colored look of The Great Train Robbery and The Adventures of Nemo.
• Almost all of Level 5's work with special mention to Studio Ghibli's work on Ni No Kuni
• And although it is yet to be released, I have to bring up Cuphead and its look inspired by early cartoons like Popeye and Mickey Mouse.

My favorite art directions:

-Stay in the lines.

-Brush strokes should move in one direction.

-If the art you're hanging in the wall is heavy, find a stud for the nail.

• Guilty Gear Xrd
• Valkyria Chronicles
• Okami
• World of Warcraft
• Vagrant Story

• Shadow of the Colossus
• Bloodborne
• Dishonored
• Persona 4
• Bioshock

Just of the top of my head. There are so many fantastic artists in the video game industry. One day, I hope to be making my own art for games, but that's a ways off.

• Wind Waker
• Tales of Vesperia (It makes me sad they abandoned this art style, it was so good)
• Lost Odyssey
• .Hack//G.U
• Dark Souls

Naming just 5 is really hard because there are just so many games I could list, but I tried.

• Remember Me
• Zeno Clash
• Super Mario World
• Metal Gear Solid
• Street Fighter V

It feels weird to put SFV on here, but I genuinely think that game looks incredible.

Okami

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Cuphead

Diablo III

Grim Fandango

Limbo

World of Warcraft

In no specific order:

• Deus Ex: Human Revolution; In a better world this game could have been a fashion touchstone.
• Mirror's Edge; It's becoming more and more clear that DICE, potentially more than even making battlefields, likes designing stark modernist office spaces.
• Dishonored; The differences between traditional painting and the digital paintings we know mostly through the concept art of video games are subtle but distinct and I love that Dishonored decides to embrace the nuances of the latter. Now, if only texture compression wasn't a thing.
• Sword & Sworcery; though its style was emulated ad nauseum, I still find the original wonderfully striking.
• Kentucky Route Zero

Off the top of my head:

Dark Souls

FEZ

Jet Set Radio Future

Killer 7

Mario Bros 3

Ni no Kuni stands out immediately for me. It looked gorgeous, and the art style fit with the worlds they created. Really dug the hell out of it through and through, even if it was a little kiddish. Full Throttle has lost a little bit of its charm ovver the years, but I still love that 2D foreground, 3D background cartoony wasteland look. Super Mario World's graphics are timeless and still look fantastic, even more so than its 3D heirs. Fable 2's overall design was absolutely fantastic, and supplants what would have once been a different choice here in Quest for Glory VGA or QfG IV, simply because I think it's a better realized version of fairy-tale worlds. And finally, I'll say Link to the Past, which is probably the most tenuous on this list. I love how it looked back in the day, but I think strong arguments could be made for games that have come since, including Ocarina and Wind Waker in particular.

Runner ups would go to Final Fantasy Tactics, Bioshock, Dark Cloud 2, Borderlands, Wolf Among Us, Super Mario Galaxy, Fallout 1 & 2/Arcanum, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

1. Windwaker, mentioned many times and is my favourite game of all time due in no small part to the timeless art direction.

2. Dishonoured, I remember it being compared to bioshock infinite quite a bit and while bioshock quickly devolves into a pastiche of video game ass level design, dishonoured maintains its weird repulsive decadence throughout. Great management of detail and texture, it really does look like a cool oil painting a lot of the time, environments seem to be composed with this mentality. Probably the most complete visual package ive ever seen, all of its visual components have been put together with such care.

3. Homeworld, best spaceship designs in the industry.

4. Fashion souls.

5. Mirrors edge, love the use of colour. Really cohesive view of a Utopian city, its so rare to see anything other than the usual dirty post apocalyptic or dystopian settings. Its much harder to do well because you have to design everything, make it cool and believable at the same time and you can't just throw random crap all over the floor to make it look detailed/ cover up bad design.

Bioshock Infinite. The game may not have delivered on the promise of its early art and scene setting promo material, but man was it an interesting world to run around in.

Resident Evil Remake. I've always disliked horror games, yet somehow have a deep, deep affection for RE1, 2 and 4 (as well as Silent Hill 2). Chalk it up to industry trends I guess. Yet somehow, all these years later the Resident Evil Remake remains its own, utterly singular experience. Games are still chasing after it more than a decade later.

Journey. Minimalist art design is often striking to me, and its certainly been en vogue over the past decade, but no one nailed it quite like Journey. One of the most screen-cap worthy games of all time, and what's more, everyone was taking screenshots of the exact same scenes for weeks after it came out.

Shadow of the Colossus. One of maybe a handful of games that could make me feel like I was a stranger in a strange land - and perhaps more importantly, that I was actually doing more harm than good to the world. A lot of open world games suffer from lack of things to do between the major objectives, lack of stimulus in general. Shadow of Colossus revels in it.

I can't decide between Grand Theft Auto V or Red Dead Redemption for my final answer, so instead I'll just say Future Cop L.A.P.D. and be done with it.

Bioshock Infinite and Demon's Souls for the most awe-inspiring sights.

Professor Layton for the absolutely gorgeous environments, incredible animation and a fantastic feel of the atmosphere.

Hearthstone for the best UI in a video game ever.

And let's just say Persona 4 because they actually do anime right in a video game.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

On topic a few quick picks:

• Fez
• Grow Home
• Hotline Miami
• Bastion
• Team Fortress 2
• Jazzpunk
• LISA
• Luftrausers
• World of Warcraft

Probably missing a lot of obvious things. For the most part only more recent games are coming to mind.

Mirror's Edge

Max Payne

GTASA

F.E.A.R.

Mortal Kombat 2

Its cheating, but I could easily fill a list with Clover/Platinum titles, so pretty much everything they've done has been amazingly realized and striking, from the hard comic inking of MadWorld and Viewtiful Joe, Okami's flowing ink wash and rice paper cel shading, Vanquish's dizzying and sprawling scifi dyson world with sleek mecha, Bayonetta's incredible gilded and gothic structures and insanely detailed enemies, to Wonderful 101's colorful plastic gashapon tilt shift world.

As for others; Darksiders 2 chunky, huge, and richly colored world, RE4's dour and depressing forest and village (no game has ever made me actually feel cold like this game's opening), Super Mario World's timeless sprites, RAGE's dusty and rusted apocalypse that still managed to be full of vivid colors, Brutal Legend's amazing heavy metal world filled with guitar monuments, badass wildlife, and oversized cars, Conker Live and Reloaded's Windy and Barn Boys areas with their bouncy and lush cartoony visuals and animation.

There are a lot of incredible looking games.

forgot about that one, makes my top 5 for sure. this is one of the problems with a digital collection, you can't just look at your shelf for your game history anymore, trying to think what's on what console, i may have to do up a list on here for future reference.