the problem is vogel have no art sense whatsoever. he commissioned art based on his request and based on the video, we can clearly see the artist is pretty talented. the problem is not cost, but vogel's inability to make sense of a 2 dimensional space that looks good and combine sprites so that it feels like everything "belong" in 1 space. Queen's wish looks like mish mash of assets sewn together awkwardly that it feels 'flat'.
first problem is the switch to full top down. with isometric, it is easy to maintain the illusion of depth, due to isometric, in it's nature is to simulate a 3D space because of the view angle. so even with little details, it is easy to make it looks decent and not flat, as is the case with avadon/ nu avernums. in fact, the background in avadon / nu avernum looks really great. most of my issues are in the player assets/creatures that are animated awkwardly:
the perspective switch and jeff's inability to art, makes alot of details lost. for example look at these scene:
there are few problems with this:
1. the building and terrain. first off, jeff opted a tile based background, that in creating the set, jeff use different tiles of textures, which is imo, very cheap and efficient. with 5 different textures you already can make a town. dirt, road, grass, building and roof. the problem is they make everything look flat. compared to a natural 2d drawn scenes that are drawn with the scene in mind and not rely 100% on tiles (they do, but not all, especially the edges or buildings) :
the biggest difference between jeff's game is EVERYTHING made of tiles, including the buildings that just don't translate well into terrain with tiles, then pasted a building sprite above it like chrono trigger's carnaval scene. plus in the second CT screen, the scene have alot of depth. it's just not flat terrain, you know there is a highest cliff, the middle cliff, and the ravine where the characters walk.
the second one, they opted for a more realistic avernum / avadon graphics style for top down, tile based background. like i said, in isometric, it can look decent, but not top down because of the style.
imo, if you want to make a tile based/ top down background, you choose for less detail/less realistic/cartoony textures like voidspire (plus the black outline on objects, etc they fit each other so it doesn't looks like someone put a sticker of chair on paper). if you look closer, it seems like some of the objects works. the fence don't look that bad, they mix well with the ground. the flower pot in front of the house also look decent. the most awkard objects are the buildings, the water bucket and the grass. i don't know why jeff put that grasses in. they look just so awkward. should have settled with green tile textures. again, with great art direction someone can salvage it, for example darker gradation in the bottom of the building wall tile. the bucket should be made more like the pot.
:
which kinda the same, but look alot better because our brain perceive it as cartoons because i don't try to hide itself as drawings.
notice how the objects on jeff's screenshot don't feel like it belongs there at all. it just . . float. it is because alot of details are missing. no shadows, gradation, etc that indicate the object touch the ground. it is because the top down view and too much detail /realistic(at the same time lack polished details). it looks like bad photoshop job.
exile 1 looks alot worse, but it don't look out of place exactly because everything don't look realistic. we expect drawing and we got drawing.