Games with bad artstyle

[Jacob]

I like Pixar's character design, so I just can't accept that cartoony style = automatically bad.

That being said I cannot disagree that most cartoony style in games are really shit. They just look low effort and seems like they're only doing it because they don't know what art style to use. Civ games, for example, I surely can't say that semi-edutainment historical games cannot use cartoony art style since there some history books with cartoon illustrations out there aimed at all ages, and they do look good. But Civ games' art style is more creepy than goofy.

I've also heard Overwatch being claimed as "influenced by Pixar" but all I see in promotional art and screenshit are crap pseudo-anime girls rendered in feature film-tier 3D.

People already said enough about WoW.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Xenoblade Chronicles X:

 

[d1r]

Diablo 3
Torchlight 1 & 2
Grimoire
Redaxium
Cruelty Squad
Marvel vs Capcom Infinite
World of Warcraft
Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2

 

[Ash]

Nearly all 3D anime games

They look like this:

Spoiler

Or this:

Instead of looking like this:

Spoiler

or this:

But it doesn't stop at anime. Most 3D games with cartoon graphics look like absolute shit. Meanwhile I find appeal in even early 3D non-cartoon games like Quake or Tomb Raider, both 1996. For some reason I don't mind some early 3D cartoon graphics either though. Probably because pixelated and abstract, so the imagination fills in the blanks. But these are only some exceptions to the rule. Maybe it's just nostalgia and/or attachment in these cases though.

 

[Riskbreaker]

There's this style shared by great many co-op and MP shooters today, Back 4 Blood being the latest example. Elaborately designed characters straddling some middle ground between cartoony and realistic, without being outright cartoony as in Overwatch, while the environments are generally realistic. There ain't a name for it to my knowledge, but it is immediately obvious upon seeing some screenshots or videos from any of those games. The characters from one could easily be fitted into any other shooter employing this style, but not so much into more overtly cartoony game like Overwatch nor into some military shooter aiming at "realistic" visuals.
It's probably the most immediately off-putting style to me right now.

 

[Nano]

On a smaller scale, the first 2D Rayman game was kind of all over the place when it came to the characater design, it looked like some early draft that was never revised and taken as the final direction. This was slowly fixed with the following games, fortunately. Origins and Legends look pretty good overall minus a couple of characters.

What a shit take. Origins and Legends were cartoonish bullshit, Rayman 1 was a fucking interactive painting.

 

[forumvisitor#451]

From those that I play recently:

Arma 3 - good graphics, impressive tech, to this day nothing has this much scope, content, etc., BUT the UI, HUD, art direction of assets is just horrible. It's like they said, "hey we are realistic and that should be enough for you, suck our supermarket-like HUD and plain looking assets". Fuck that, only saving grace is box art, music and game itself.

BeamNG.Drive - Starting with the name. What the fuck is that? Again, impressive tech and game is so much fun and constantly being updated BUT HUD, UI, checkpoints in game, any text in game feels like Comic Sans, cars are the most boring looking cars you ever get to see. Game does not even have a proper box art or rather it feels like a placeholder. I get that it is a tech demo, but sweet Mary hire some artists and do some production to this thing.

 

[Denim Destroyer]

Splitgate - A mashup of Halo and Portal this game has the bland generic overdetailed look one has come to expect from modern sci-fi products while also having looked like it was designed by a recently cured color blind person. This game is so colorful and bright to the point of inducing disorientation since just about ever surface has a million color emitting lights. The UI has a sterile flat design that says "we don't care if our UI fits the game people are going to play it anyways." The character designs face the same problem as the level geometry and UI, everything is by the books and over designed to the point of ridiculousness. I could go on for longer about why this game is poorly designed and I have only played it for about hour!

 

[Heroic Liberator]

The Banner Saga. Didn't even play it despite being mildly interested due to how weebish the horned race looked.

 

[jackofshadows]

SMAC (well, I did for a while, and I liked the game but the looks just were spoiling everything).
Grimoire (I will get back to it at some point I think)
Torchlight/most of 3d cartoony stuff, yeah
JRPGs

In general I quite picky: if it's 2d it has to be at least somewhat beautiful, Hero-U for example was borderderline playable for me with its char's portraits despite overall decent look. When it comes to 3d I have relaxed standarts thanks to some games that I grew up on but still ugly 3d isn't something nice to look at, there has to be really something else to cling on (like playing AoD or getting into Gothic today etc).

 

[curds]

Dragon Age Origins has some of the worst art direction I've ever seen in a western rpg. Not sure about the others in the series but I assume they didn't improve the formula.

Divinity II: Ego Draconis is just as bad if not even worse.

I personally do not think that all anime games look bad and tasteless. Elminage Gothic, for example, looks pretty good to me.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Accidentally picked another title in way of the samurai 3. Only 4 more to go.
Once I have done those I can fully spend time on finding the perfect sword.

 

[Grotesque]

TES: Redguard

 

[anvi]

I am fine with anything except anime.

 

[curds]

Accidentally picked another title in way of the samurai 3. Only 4 more to go.
Once I have done those I can fully spend time on finding the perfect sword.

wrong thread?

 

[Aemar]

(every game developed by this man)

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Accidentally picked another title in way of the samurai 3. Only 4 more to go.
Once I have done those I can fully spend time on finding the perfect sword.

wrong thread?

Yup.