Colorful stylized graphics in games - Americans vs Europeans vs Japanese

[Roguey]

"The backers loved seeing it."

Not that first Wasteland 2 screenshot they didn't. A lot of gripes about how it looked cartoony. Though that was useful feedback to have (the primarily European audience for RPGs hates colorful stylized graphics).

 

[PulsatingBrain]

"Loved seeing it" and "loved how it looked" are different matters. Not that it's particularly important at this point.

 

[Bester]

When I saw w2 i thought this was early assets to be completely replaced. Then they shipped it exactly like that, looking complete shit.

I still don't know if Fargo fooled me or I fooled myself, but I was convinced he was going to make a fallout, but couldn't say it out loud due to IP infrimgent, so he said Wasteland, but all I heard was Fallout. Then he actually made a real Wastealdnd sequel.

What a turd and a disappoinment.

 

[Desiderius]

"The backers loved seeing it."

Not that first Wasteland 2 screenshot they didn't. A lot of gripes about how it looked cartoony. Though that was useful feedback to have (the primarily European audience for RPGs hates colorful stylized graphics).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/970830/The_Dungeon_Of_Naheulbeuk_The_Amulet_Of_Chaos/

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

"The backers loved seeing it."

Not that first Wasteland 2 screenshot they didn't. A lot of gripes about how it looked cartoony. Though that was useful feedback to have (the primarily European audience for RPGs hates colorful stylized graphics).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/970830/The_Dungeon_Of_Naheulbeuk_The_Amulet_Of_Chaos/

The source material is bande dessinée so it doesn't count.
WL2's setting is a desert. You're bound to see lots of beige all over.

 

[S.torch]

Not that first Wasteland 2 screenshot they didn't. A lot of gripes about how it looked cartoony. Though that was useful feedback to have (the primarily European audience for RPGs hates colorful stylized graphics).

Interesting. But I doubt that people dislike colourful styles, quite the contrary. In a scale, games devoid of colour or replacing them with filters seem to be in the lowest part (Pillars), games who let colour be even if not picking them exactly are well placed (Kingmaker, Divinity), and games that have handcrafted colour palette are kings (Disco Elysium).

 

[Harthwain]

Not that first Wasteland 2 screenshot they didn't. A lot of gripes about how it looked cartoony. Though that was useful feedback to have (the primarily European audience for RPGs hates colorful stylized graphics).

I find this statement to be doubtful. You may dislike one colorful stylized graphic and like other colorful stylized graphic. A lot depends on the style. Like, A LOT.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

The Witcher 3 stood out at places because it was very, very colorful. I think Roguey is thinking of your average anime inspired jrpg with the "colorful" bit.

Compare this

To most western rpgs. It's not the same. Whimsical stuff is mostly linked to shonen manga, stuff made with male teens in mind. Most western rpg fans would feel like the game they're playing is too "dumb" if the image above was the calling card.

 

[Dadd]

The Witcher 3 stood out at places because it was very, very colorful. I think Roguey is thinking of your average anime inspired jrpg with the "colorful" bit.

Compare this

To most western rpgs. It's not the same. Whimsical stuff is mostly linked to shonen manga, stuff made with male teens in mind. Most western rpg fans would feel like the game they're playing is too "dumb" if the image above was the calling card.

Wow that looks disgusting

 

[Roguey]

This forum is full of people who think the pinnacle of art style is Fallout, Torment, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, and dislike the cartooniness of Divinity: Original Sin (they dialed down in the sequel on account of this feedback), Kingmaker (also dialed down a bit in the sequel), Harebrained's Shadowrun games, World of Warcraft, and yeah, jrpgs.

When Spellbound did Arcania, their own market research led them to these conclusions which is why the game shipped with an American color palette (colors!) and a European color palette (drab and dreary, just like what they're used to in their lives)

 

[Butter]

Nobody ever complained about colourful in the Might & Magic games.

Notice in the above screenshots, it's mostly brown. Turning up the saturation on brown is not going to make it look better.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Nobody ever complained about colourful in the Might & Magic games.

Browinification was something that happened with time, as games became something other than a niche and people from outside the hobby became interested on them. Then you have what happened with movies in the early 00s too.
Ironic that you mention M&M, since that series, along with Ultima, were key for the identity of jrpgs.

 

[Dadd]

With detailed 3d graphics you need to arrange colors tastefully or it'll look like diarrhea

 

[S.torch]

I think Roguey is thinking of your average anime inspired jrpg with the "colorful" bit.

That is not "your average anime" JRPG, that's a drawing from Akira Toriyama, the author of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, which happens to be the character designer of Dragon Quest since forever.

And that's providing that something like the "average anime" look exist, which it doesn't. Almost every JRPG has its own character designer and art director that provides unique style to the game, usually becoming part of the personality and essence of the saga itself. Some JRPGs have remained with the same character designer for 20 years or more, Dragon Quest being one of those examples.

In comparison there are western devs, which lack identity to the point that most of their games had the same (hideous) looking characters, lack of colour palette, environment feeling and design. The compilation of hideous characters from different western games including western RPGs are famous. Character designers and artist are thrown and changed twenty times and nobody notices because games are made with less identity as possible, and that's providing that they have something like an actual artist in the first place and not just the usual 3D asset monkey manipulator.

This forum is full of people who think the pinnacle of art style is Fallout, Torment, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, and dislike the cartooniness of Divinity: Original Sin (they dialed down in the sequel on account of this feedback), Kingmaker (also dialed down a bit in the sequel), Harebrained's Shadowrun games, World of Warcraft, and yeah, jrpgs.

You're comparing games that are very different between themselves and which don't necessary attract the same people.

I like every artistic aspect of Torment (though I have preferred they used 2D portraits instead of 3D, pero bueno) and its geniality is mostly a fruit that the style is taken or adapted straight up from the original AD&D Planescape Setting Campaign book, which was wonderfully illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi. Following closely is Icewind Dale with its great colour palette and portrait set. Both of them are very vivid and colourful. These games are more similar to JRPGs in the sense that they're completely marked by handmade art.

They're not similar to Fallout or Baldur's Gate, that have toned-down colours and in the case of Baldur's Gate hideous portraits that are greatly surpassed for the more stylized versions made by the mangaka of Dungeon Meshi.

Other games that are well valued in the Codex that share similar colourful or vivid palettes are The Witcher III and Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Specially the second, which should be noted that has most of it icons, user interface and map hand-drawn.

Is not true that people here don't like colour.

 

[Conan]

This forum is full of people who think the pinnacle of art style is Fallout, Torment, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, and dislike the cartooniness of Divinity: Original Sin (they dialed down in the sequel on account of this feedback), Kingmaker (also dialed down a bit in the sequel), Harebrained's Shadowrun games, World of Warcraft, and yeah, jrpgs.

When Spellbound did Arcania, their own market research led them to these conclusions which is why the game shipped with an American color palette (colors!) and a European color palette (drab and dreary, just like what they're used to in their lives)

I disagree. Fallout was never considered the pinnacle of art design.

The ones you are right about are IWDs.

The next one on the codex art style list would be witcher 1.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

I think Roguey is thinking of your average anime inspired jrpg with the "colorful" bit.

That is not "your average anime" JRPG, that's a drawing from Akira Toriyama, the author of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, which happens to be the character designer of Dragon Quest since forever.

And that's providing that something like the "average anime" look exist, which it doesn't. Almost every JRPG has its own character designer and art director that provides unique style to the game, usually becoming part of the personality and essence of the saga itself. Some JRPGs have remained with the same character designer for 20 years or more, Dragon Quest being one of those examples.

In comparison there are western devs, which lack identity to the point that most of their games had the same (hideous) looking characters, lack of colour palette, environment feeling and design. The compilation of hideous characters from different western games including western RPGs are famous. Character designers and artist are thrown and changed twenty times and nobody notices because games are made with less identity as possible, and that's providing that they have something like an actual artist in the first place and not just the usual 3D asset monkey manipulator.

This forum is full of people who think the pinnacle of art style is Fallout, Torment, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, and dislike the cartooniness of Divinity: Original Sin (they dialed down in the sequel on account of this feedback), Kingmaker (also dialed down a bit in the sequel), Harebrained's Shadowrun games, World of Warcraft, and yeah, jrpgs.

You're comparing games that are very different between themselves and which don't necessary attract the same people.

I like every artistic aspect of Torment (though I have preferred they used 2D portraits instead of 3D, pero bueno) and its geniality is mostly a fruit that the style is taken or adapted straight up from the original AD&D Planescape Setting Campaign book, which was wonderfully illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi. Following closely is Icewind Dale with its great colour palette and portrait set. Both of them are very vivid and colourful. These games are more similar to JRPGs in the sense that they're completely marked by handmade art.

They're not similar to Fallout or Baldur's Gate, that have toned-down colours and in the case of Baldur's Gate hideous portraits that are greatly surpassed for the more stylized versions made by the mangaka of Dungeon Meshi.

Other games that are well valued in the Codex that share similar colourful or vivid palettes are The Witcher III and Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Specially the second, which should be noted that has most of it icons, user interface and map hand-drawn.

Is not true that people here don't like colour.

Toriyama is by all means a big standard when it comes to manga, shonen and even jrpg looks, because he's a key figure in the medium. While every franchise or game might have their own designer, they do keep the same feel of japanese contemporary fantasy, which is mostly inspired by manga and Disney (because for some reason the japanese LOVE Disney, they have their own Disneyland and everything). Dragon Quest is probably the best example of this kind of japanese fantasy, and it's actually one of the first videogame series that really became big in the country. Shonen manga in general do have a samey feel, because they follow the same audience, and most of these authors have worked in the gaming industry since day one.

There's a reason why Berserk never became a huge hit in Japan, at least in the same scale that other manga have, and also why Berserk is more popular sales wise outside of Japan than inside of it. Miura said that the "Tolkien club", a term he used to describe the western fantasy fandom, was made out of a dozen people in the entire country.

 

[S.torch]

Toriyama is by all means a big standard when it comes to manga, shonen and even jrpg looks, because he's a key figure in the medium.

Oh sure Toriyama is a huge influence on many other artists both inside and outside of Japan, the point I was getting at is that he has one of the most distinctive styles in the entire field and that this is a standard or that JRPGs even have a standard in the first place is kind of ridiculous. When one of the things that JRPGs excel at is that they all like to have their own style by which they can be recognized and differentiated from others. Keeping the same designers for years and even decades for that very reason.

they do keep the same feel of japanese contemporary fantasy, which is mostly inspired by manga and Disney

Nope. Early Japanese Fantasy takes inspiration from classic Fantasy such as the Original D&D, AD&D, Tolkien, etc. In fact series like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy took their original inspiration from AD&D. Manga has its own genres that haven't overlapped much with JRPGs. The Japanese took from Disney very little except to learn how to animate, after which they discarded it.

To give a random example, since you're talking about shonen, an extremely popular genre in shonen is martial arts. However, you don't know many JRPGs that are primarily about martial arts.

Otherwise, classical fantasy always had a "small club". The difference is that we've reached a point where the Japanese can make better classic fantasy than most Westerners, as proven by games like Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma, etc. And seeing the tremendous amount of fans that these games and things like Berserk have (it's one of the best selling manga in Japan), I would say that the club is a bit bigger in Japan than in the West now, at least outside of niche circles.

 

[Tyranicon]

There's a reason why Berserk never became a huge hit in Japan, at least in the same scale that other manga have, and also why Berserk is more popular sales wise outside of Japan than inside of it. Miura said that the "Tolkien club", a term he used to describe the western fantasy fandom, was made out of a dozen people in the entire country.

Glorious nippon having no taste, confirmed.

 

[KainenMorden]

Nobody ever complained about colourful in the Might & Magic games.

Browinification was something that happened with time, as games became something other than a niche and people from outside the hobby became interested on them. Then you have what happened with movies in the early 00s too.
Ironic that you mention M&M, since that series, along with Ultima, were key for the identity of jrpgs.

What happened with movies in the 00's?

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

What happened with movies in the 00's?

Blue filter on everything. Especially prevalent in period pieces in the early 2000s. Think the opening battle of Gladiator or the Underworld films.

 

[Hace El Oso]

What happened with movies in the 00's?

Blue filter on everything. Especially prevalent in period pieces in the early 2000s. Think the opening battle of Gladiator or the Underworld films.

Be reasonable, it wasn't all like that. They used green filters too.

 

[Roguey]

Yeah, the 00s is when digital color grading was introduced, O Brother Where Art Thou from 2000 being the very first to use it. A lot of people got carried away, some still are.

 

[North Gibraltarian Dog]

Nope. Early Japanese Fantasy takes inspiration from classic Fantasy such as the Original D&D, AD&D, Tolkien, etc. In fact series like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy took their original inspiration from AD&D.

That's not true.

Dragon Quests and Final Fantasies as other japanese foundational examples were inspired by western Crpgs, (early Wizardrys and specially first Ultimas), but not directly by "D&D" original source or any other P&P rpgs "local trend" influence. D&D and P&P rpgs in general were never truly popular in Japan, not remotely at anglosphere or continental european levels.

The lack of P&P and previous wargames tradition in Japan favoured the abandonment of RPG essence and the change of Game style in jrpgs (complete change of genre actuallly) as much as the decline of PC gaming in that country and the rise of children-focused and console centric gaming. Neither characters building and progression, complex and meaningful skill systems or exploration and action agency were truly relevant for most japanese videocames developers or players as they lacked experience with those contexts in P&P and a stronger experience with actual crpgs. Japanese Wizardry clones are a niche exception, but that's because most of them aren't really jrpgs, despite their art style.

That's the reason also why some japanese pure action rpg-likes are more accepted and liked by crpg fans than convencional jrpgs... Because despite all the doubts about their rpgness, Dark Souls and Elden Ring are closer mechanically and in core design focus to classic crpgs, than the average J"rpg". And I say this as someone pretty annoyed by those rolling-simulators popularity.

On the other hand Tolkien wasn't too popular in Japan neither before Jackson movies and even after it was far less relevant than at any corner of the culturally european world (so including Russia or Latin America).

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Nope. Early Japanese Fantasy takes inspiration from classic Fantasy such as the Original D&D, AD&D, Tolkien, etc. In fact series like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy took their original inspiration from AD&D.

That's not true.

Dragon Quests and Final Fantasies as other japanese foundational examples were inspired by western Crpgs, (early Wizardrys and specially first Ultimas), but not directly by "D&D" original source or any other P&P rpgs "local trend" influence. D&D and P&P rpgs in general were never truly popular in Japan, not remotely at anglosphere or continental european levels.

The lack of P&P and previous wargames tradition in Japan favoured the abandonment of RPG essence and the change of Game style in jrpgs (complete change of genre actuallly) as much as the decline of PC gaming in that country and the rise of children-focused and console centric gaming. Neither characters building and progression, complex and meaningful skill systems or exploration and action agency were truly relevant for most japanese videocames developers or players as they lacked experience with those contexts in P&P and a stronger experience with actual crpgs. Japanese Wizardry clones are a niche exception, but that's because most of them aren't really jrpgs, despite their art style.

That's the reason also why some japanese pure action rpg-likes are more accepted and liked by crpg fans than convencional jrpgs... Because despite all the doubts about their rpgness, Dark Souls and Elden Ring are closer mechanically and in core design focus to classic crpgs, than the average J"rpg". And I say this as someone pretty annoyed by those rolling-simulators popularity.

On the other hand Tolkien wasn't too popular in Japan neither before Jackson movies and even after it was far less relevant than at any corner of the culturally european world (so including Russia or Latin America).

This is true. Wizardry, Ultima and Might and Magic were extremely influential for japanese gaming, not jrpgs. It bears mentioning that the ports these games received were often anime-ified, especially with their promo art, and overhauled to present a distinct image and UI that ended up being adopted by DQ, FF and even Zelda.
D&D and crpgs were a thing among grown nerds, so to speak, but as many other things, the japanese made a whole new thing out of this.

The evolution of japanese gaming is very interesting, but it follows major timeframes that are somewhat similar to the west's, with japanese gamers claiming the scene "died" in the early 00s or so (basically when Sega stopped being a powerhouse and became a normal developer).

 

[KainenMorden]

The man says he does not put the politics in REAL LIFE into his games. Politicking within the story world and setting is fine.

How enlightened is that? One wishes we could have more of such insight. Firstly, it enables the storyteller to create worlds with their own history and politics divorced from reality, an essential aspect of escapist fantasy.

Fictional settings and worlds will not have the same political and social issues that we have. Injecting 2023 issues from a moderately advanced computer age civilization such as ours to, say, a medieval analogy is the height of Author Tract.

"Don't think of it as a novel. Think of it as a chance to retroactively win every argument you have ever walked away from."
— Worst Muse

Isn't author tract when the entire setting is designed to promote an ideology? I'm not sure if any crpgs ever did that but there's many newer titles I haven't played.